Archives of the Time Agency
by NightsDawne
Summary: An anthology of short stories about the 51st century Time Agency. 8th Story: Part two of Latter Days. Jack makes the trip back to the beaches of Boe; Kyhl follows after him while the Agency itself lies under threat of collapse. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW
1. The Face of Boe

:This is more a series of one-offs presented as an ongoing collection rather than a cohesive story. They'll follow the continuity set by my other Torchwood fics listed below and are based in the Time Agency of the 51st century. Other than that, I'm not sure I want to limit myself too much. I do plan to cover my theories on canon events, such as the creatures that took Gray and the true reasons why Jack's memory was wiped, but I also want to explore time travel in general, so some stories might not have much to do with canon DW/TW at all. I don't own Torchwood, its characters, or the Doctor Who universe, which belong to RTD, the BBC, and as referenced in some of my stories, Marvel. I don't own any of Marvel's characters, either. Kyhl Davies is my creation, although his original identity, Ianto Jones, is not. If anyone is interested in taking Kyhl and using him in one of your stories, I'll probably be perfectly open to such collaboration, so please email me and let me know.:

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**My Torchwood fics**  
Deus Ex Machina (not yet published)  
Oberon's Wild Night  
Tripping the Rift  
Kyhl's Story  
Archives of the Time Agency

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_**Archives of the Time Agency**_

_The Face of Boe_

* * *

Kyhl burst into the bedroom, praying he wasn't too late. "Jack?!" He looked around frantically. "Damn it!" He looked in the closet, in the bathroom, and went so far as to drop down and look under the bed. Nothing. Jack was gone again.

He got to his feet, blowing his chestnut bangs out of his eyes, and spun around to drop backwards onto the bed. Why had he gone this time? They hadn't fought. Neither of them was having an affair at the moment. When the Doctor had dropped him off in front of Jack's house only a week of current time had passed, and Jack hadn't been angry or jealous. Kyhl groaned and threw his arms to the sides in frustration. "Why do you _do_ this to me, Jack?" His fingertips brushed against the crisp edge of a piece of paper and he sat up. A cream-colored square lay wedged against the pillow, addressed first with 'Kyhl', then scratched out and replaced with 'Ianto'. He snatched the paper and unfolded it to read.

_My Soulmate,_

_The time has come for you to start a phase of your life I can't be part of, because I've already been part of it. I know it won't be the first time I've been away from you for an extended period of time, but this time is different. This time I don't want to leave, I have to. Don't try to find me, at least the me you know now. I know where the Doctor took you and I know you just got approval from the Prime Minister to start up Earth's Time Agency. You'll be great at the job. I've seen you in action and I know your dedication to saving the timeline from those who would exploit it or trample it carelessly. The Doctor is right to trust you with the secrets of Rift tripping. In the interests of not crossing timelines, I know you'll understand why I can't be there as I am today. I've gone on ahead and will wait for you, if you can still love me after all that will happen in the next decades. As a parting request, please look into recruiting a young soldier from the Boeshane Peninsula, Citizen #1398-76453-98712. Don't let him give you too hard a time._

_All my love,_

_Jack_

Kyhl traced his fingers over the signature, his heart already aching. "See you soon, Captain Jack Harkness," he whispered.

* * *

He made his way off the boat, squinting at the bright sun that glittered off the white beach sand. He wondered if the suit had been the best choice, almost an inside joke that only Jack would have appreciated, had he been here. Boe was a hole-in-the-wall, a rustic village of aquaculture with an artist colony that had yet to produce a famous name. It had been a budding tourist destination until the Shrieker invasion that had decimated the East Coast population. Boe had been particularly hard hit, several waves of attack wiping out seventy-five percent of the villagers in the past three years. The experienced and veteran soldiers who fought to protect the civilian population had been wiped out almost immediately. The volunteers who replaced them stood even less of a chance of survival. In the past year the meager defense force had been made up of anyone left who was strong enough to wield a gun, mostly children.

Kyhl had watched Jack retreat into himself as news of the attacks reached them in West California. He knew why it was. Jack had been born in Boe, just fourteen years before according to the calendar, but much closer to three thousand years by experience. As a time traveler, Jack had completed a circuit of time, winding up in the 21st century as an accidental immortal, now washed up on the shore of his own birth century and seeing his own history unfold again. His childhood in Boe had been marred by tragedy: the death of his father, the capture of his younger brother by the Shrieker troops, and later his mother's suicide. Over three millennia together Kyhl had been forced to piece together what Jack would reveal to him in bits and scattered references and he still had only a distant and fuzzy mental image of what his lover must have suffered in his young years.

He knew at this point Jack's younger self was two months shy of his fifteenth birthday and a soldier in the Boeshane Resistance, one of those referred to as the Orphan Warriors. He had spent the last six months as a captive of the Shriekers along with another child soldier, during which had been forced to witness the torture and eventual death of the younger boy before being released in the middle of the Boeshane wilderness. He had survived six days alone, injured and weakened from his ordeal, before he was found by a patrol and brought to the village to recover. Kyhl pondered what he himself had been doing at the age of fourteen. Certainly not fighting malicious and sadistic alien raptors. More like rugby matches and piano lessons.

Kyhl shifted his attache case to his other hand, reaching out to catch the arm of a passing woman in a medic's coat. "Excuse me, I'm looking for James J. Harper. Are you the village's doctor?"

The woman stopped, looking over the stranger with the suspicion of a outpost local. "I am. What do you want him for? He's not well yet."

"I'm on official Ministry business." He pulled his identity card out of his pocket, handing it to her for inspection. "Can you take me to him?"

"He was already questioned about his capture." She handed the card back. "What more can you people get out of him for putting him through the pain of reliving it over and over again?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't reveal the nature of my business with him." Kyhl smiled softly, playing off his boyish looks and unthreatening demeanor to try to get past her protectiveness. "I assure you I'm not here to hurt him in any way."

The doctor's stern look melted away. "All right, follow me. I was just on my way to the surgery anyhow."

"Thank you." Kyhl fell into step with her. "What's his physical condition? Will he be up for travel?"

"I'd prefer he got at least another week in bed before that." She sighed. "He's physically mended, for the most part. We may be an outpost, but we do keep some nanonics on hand, or we did. I used them all on him, but after what he'd been through, fixing his body was the least I could do." She looked up at Kyhl sharply as she let them into the clinic. "Emotionally, he's worn out. They're just kids, these soldiers. Most of them have no family left, don't have anything left to lose. He lost his mother last year. Then he got captured trying to provide cover for his best friend when he panicked and ran the wrong way in the last attack and those.. creatures.. did things so horrible, so meaninglessly awful. Forced him to watch them kill his friend in front of him, kill him by inches, listening to his screams and not able to do a damn thing to stop it." She shook her head, putting her hand to the latch of a white door marked _Infirmary: No visitors._ "And then they just up and leave, vanish from the galaxy, and leave him in the middle of the desert to die. It's all so completely senseless."

"War so often is," Kyhl said softly. "We can just be thankful they're gone for now and do what we can to clean up the carnage they left behind." He took a deep breath as the doctor opened the door, nodded his thanks, and stepped into the small room. Bright Atlantic sunlight filtered through the high window, giving the room an overexposed air, bleaching out the small white dresser and single futon mattress draped in a tan duvet. A wicker chair faced into the corner of the room.

He closed the door behind him softly and set down his attache case. "James?" A tanned hand gripped the arm of the wicker chair, the high back obscuring the rest of the occupant from view. Kyhl walked slowly toward the chair as if approaching a skittish stray animal that might bolt if he was too careless. "James, I'm not here to hurt you. I think what you did was remarkable. You're the strongest young man I've ever heard of."

"Jack." The voice was so young, and quiet, but the inflections were the same.

"What?"

"Jack. It's my middle name. Everyone calls me Jack."

Kyhl stepped around the side of the chair, the light from the window pouring over his shoulder and illuminating the features of the teenager. His hair still held a golden hue, not the dark brown he'd have as an adult. His face, still gaunt from his ordeal, showed the beginnings of a chiseled jaw and square cheekbones. His full lower lip trembled ever so slightly, jutting forward the same way it always would when he was fighting back overwhelming emotions. Kyhl wanted to pull him into a comforting hug born of the familiarity of lovers, but he was a stranger to this boy, and this boy was far too young to share that intimacy. He was also far too young to have lost everything he cared about.

"Jack then. It's a good name. One of my favorites. My name's Kyhl." He smiled softly as the boy looked up at him at last, blue eyes defiant and strong in spite of his youth. "Kyhl Davies."

"You're not with the military. You with Homeworld Security?"

Kyhl shook his head. "I'm under Ministry of Defense, but not anything to do with any of that. I'm starting up a completely new agency. One that will answer only to the Prime Minister."

Jack turned in his chair, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Like Black Ops?"

"No. Something completely new." Kyhl knelt next to the chair. "It will require undercover work, and I need people who can think on their feet, keep their heads, and take care of themselves without support if the situation calls for it."

Jack looked away, his eyes filling with an emptiness that didn't belong in the face of someone so young. "Then go look for them. I don't want to go anywhere."

Kyhl reached out, touching the boy's hair softly. Jack recoiled from the touch, his eyes flashing a moment of fear before they filled with anger. "Leave me alone!"

Kyhl shook his head, stroking Jack's hair again. "You can't hide in here. There's a whole world out there that needs you, still. A whole life ahead of you that you can't even imagine."

Jack trembled, but didn't pull away. "Nobody needs me."

"I do." Kyhl smiled gently. "Will you come with me just once, and the minute you tell me you want to come home, I'll bring you right back here?"

Jack's entire body stiffened. "Why? Why should I go anywhere with you? I don't even know you."

"Because I can show you something so amazing you'll find a reason to keep living. And if you don't come with me, you'll wonder forever what you gave up." Kyhl stood, holding out his hand. "So what will it be? I promise you, I won't let anything happen to you."

Jack stared at the hand. Kyhl kept his grey eyes fixed on Jack's blue ones, watching as the boy struggled with his crippling trauma. It seemed forever that they stayed in their relative positions before Jack laid his hand in Kyhl's, pulling himself up to his feet, his grip tightening until he was clinging to him. Kyhl pulled him close, wrapping a protective arm around him, reaching around with his other hand to open the leather covering to his wrist strap, exposing the interface board embedded in it. He pushed the activation key, tendrils of golden and red light erupting around them.

"What's happening?" Jack looked up at him, wary, but not afraid.

"We're going to trip the Rift." Kyhl stepped back, allowing the light to draw him in, holding Jack tight to keep them together. He felt Jack grab onto him desperately as the Rift swallowed them, seeming to pull at them as if it would rip them apart. A moment before the sensation became unbearable, it was over. The Rift energy retreated, leaving them standing on solid ground once more.

Jack pushed away from Kyhl, shaking like a leaf. "What was that?! You said you wouldn't let anything happen!"

"I didn't know how to prepare you other than just taking you into it. Sorry."

"Well next time figure out a way!" Jack stopped, looking around them, his jaw dropping. "This isn't.. Boe."

"Nope."

"Where are we?"

"Morgan Arcade in Cardiff City Centre. Two thousand and eight. We need to buy some clothes." Kyhl turned for a shop.

Jack caught onto his sleeve, looking in panic at the number of people walking past them. "Two thousand and eight what? Why are there so many people?"

"The year two thousand and eight. Actually, it's a rather light crowd considering. Usually I would prefer to arrive at night, when it's easier to just steal some clothes in time to fit in, but fortunately, I have access to funds here."

Jack furrowed his brow. "The year? Are you crazy? That's.. more than three thousand years ago. We can't just be three thousand years ago."

"I can." Kyhl quickly picked out outfits for both of them, holding up a shirt to Jack's chest. "And since you're with me, you can, too. It's not your favorite shade of blue, but what do you think?"

Jack blinked, shaking his head. "It's fine. Because it's not happening. How can we have traveled through time?"

Kyhl handed the clothes to Jack. "I'll explain in a bit. Right now I need to hit the cash machine."

"What's a cash machine? What are you going to hit it with? Kyhl?" Jack trailed off as Kyhl stepped up to an ATM, using his wrist strap to interface with the network and withdraw £300. "What are you going to do with those drawings?"

"It's one of the accepted forms of transaction in this period. They're still transitioning to a virtual accounts system and cash doesn't leave a trail for anyone to track. That's one of the things you need to learn. Use non-electronic means of barter whenever possible."

Jack's brow knitted. "You can trade drawings for clothes?"

"Notes. They're called pound notes, or pounds, or quid, and they're printed by the government with primitive but relatively effective anti-counterfeiting measures. We have to hurry. We don't want to be here when Torchwood shows up." Kyhl took the clothes and carried them to the sales counter, Jack dutifully following, too stunned by his surroundings to put up a fight.

Kyhl paid for the clothes, flashing his disarming smile at the clerk. "Mind if we put these on now? You're a doll." The American accent helped deflect questions regarding his 51st century fashion style, the clerk breaking into a smile. He gave the girl a wink and handed Jack the bag with his clothes in it, turning him for the changing rooms. "Go in there and put these on. Stick what you're wearing now in the bag, alright?" He gave him an encouraging push toward a stall, then stepped into the one next to him, changing into a pair of jeans and a touristy Welsh flag hoodie. "Jack? You doing okay?" he called as he folded his suit, stowing it in the shopping bag.

"My pants won't latch. There's something wrong with the magnestrip."

Kyhl bit back a laugh. Zippers had been phased out of clothing in the 25th century, so of course they would be completely outside of Jack's experience. "It's a different kind of fastener. Push the button through the slot in the top and then pull up the small metal tab."

"What?"

Kyhl stepped out of his stall, slipping behind the curtain into Jack's. "Need some help?"

Jack looked up with a blush, far more from embarrassment than modesty. "Yeah, please?"

Kyhl zipped up the teenager's jeans, then held up the long-sleeved tee with the Hard Rock Cafe logo. "At least these aren't much different, right?"

Jack gave him a look of pure relief and pulled on the shirt. "Why are the colors so garish?"

Kyhl shrugged. "People in this era aren't too interested in harmonizing with the natural environment. They like to contain nature inside parks and surround them with highly inorganic structures."

"... That doesn't make sense. Why would they want to live like that?"

Kyhl laughed, leading the way out of the changing rooms. "You'll find there's a lot of things that don't make sense in the past. It took a long time for society to evolve to the point you're used to. The important thing is to practice tolerance and respect toward those with primitive understanding of our place in the universe. After all, these people don't even realize how many other civilizations and races exist out there in the stars."

"How can they not know? I may not know much about history, but I do know humans weren't even the first civilization on this planet, and we're still a new race by galactic standards. And that's in the 51st century."

"Exactly. New race. We're like children. You don't expect children to know as much as you do, right?"

"No, of course not."

"And you don't think them horrible for being ignorant, do you?"

"No. They learn and grow with time."

"Same thing with societies. They struggle, they make mistakes, they fall, they get up again, they learn, they evolve. Keep that in mind and don't judge them too harshly." Kyhl looked back over his shoulder, spotting a group of black-clad men and women striding purposefully down the middle of the arcade. "Torchwood. Always quick."

"Who?" Jack oofed as Kyhl grabbed his arm and pulled him inside a shop, taking cover behind a display of comic books. "What are we hiding from? Are they enemies?"

"No, they're not. They're a group of people who deal with everything that comes through the Rift. They wouldn't hurt us, but it would complicate things if we ran into them." He watched around the side of the display as one of the team, dressed in a tailored suit that set him apart from his more casually clad allies, stopped in front of the shop, his back to the door as he searched the passersby for anything unusual. Jack squeezed under him to see what was going on. Another man, wearing a dark blue RAF great coat from World War II, walked up to the suited man, talking to him in a quiet voice.

"Why aren't they leaving?" Jack whispered tensely. "What happens if they catch us?" He gripped the edge of the display, not realizing how flimsy the structure was. The cardboard shifted, then slid forward, toppling.

"Shit!" Kyhl pulled Jack against his chest protectively as the man in the great coat looked straight at him, then dropped blue eyes to his young companion. The color drained from the man's face and his eyes snapped back to Kyhl's. Kyhl raised his brows, desperately urging the man to move on. The younger man in the suit started to turn to see what his partner was looking at, but the man in the great coat grabbed him quickly by the elbow, directing his attention across the street with a point. Kyhl mouthed a quick _Thank you, Jack_. Without wasting another moment he took young Jack's hand, running for the exit at the back of the store.

Once outside again he let go of the boy, doubling over to catch his breath. "Whew! That was a close one."

"I don't get it. Why did we have to run from them? That man helped us, didn't he?"

Kyhl nodded. "Not the first time he's saved my ass. I almost crossed my own timeline there."

"What do you mean?"

Kyhl ruffled Jack's hair fondly. "The man in the suit was me, three thousand years ago. A past me. If I'd turned and seen myself and recognized my own face, it might have contaminated my own history. I might have made different choices, knowing I'd be around in the future, and then I might not have because time isn't set in stone. Do you understand?"

Jack frowned in thought. "You mean a paradox?"

"Exactly. That's what the agency I'm creating is all about. Fixing the holes in the timeline, preventing paradoxes. Just like there's been alien invasions to Earth that have to be defended against, there's also been time invasions, and they're equally threatening to our future."

"But if we're time traveling, aren't we invading?"

Kyhl grinned. "You catch on quick. If it weren't for others who were trampling the timeline, I'd say we should keep out of it. But they _are_ in it already and it's already contaminated. If we don't go back and try to fix what we can, the contaminations will spread. The Rift we travel in is a weak point in time and space and it should be fairly stable. Because of the time invasions, it's spreading and cracking all over the planet and throughout the past. It used to be that groups like Torchwood could just catch what slipped through the Rift and try to keep it from causing trouble, but that's not working anymore. If we don't start fixing the fractures, the whole thing is going to roll up like a ball of string and wind up in such a knot the whole planet will be in a time loop."

Jack nodded slowly. "Okay, I think I get it. You fix the things that went wrong in the past."

Kyhl nodded. "The things that happened that weren't supposed to, the things that were supposed to that failed to happen. The Time Agency will trace back through the Rift fractures and fix them. Sort of temporal plumbing."

"Can you help me go back and save my brother?" Jack's lip started to tremble again.

Kyhl swallowed hard, feeling his heart drop. "No. I'm sorry, Jack."

Jack's features hardened in anger. "Then what good is it?! If there was ever anything that wasn't supposed to happen, it was that!" Tears welled up in his blue eyes. "He wasn't supposed to get taken! Take me there and just let me save him!" He sobbed, lunging into Kyhl, swinging his fists in a primal need to strike out against the pain and rage that flooded over him.

Kyhl only partially blocked the ineffective blows, waiting for the boy's outburst to subside to the point where he could catch his arms and hold him. "I'm sorry, Jack. If I could do it I would." He hugged the boy, kissing his hair as he went limp in his arms. "I've tried so many times, but I can't do it. It's the Shriekers. Something about them. The Rift won't open into the time when they invaded. We can't go to that time."

"Then leave me here," Jack said hopelessly. "There's nothing left for me, nobody left for me."

Kyhl placed his hand under Jack's chin, lifting his face to look into his eyes. "I don't have anyone left, either. We can be there for each other." He wiped the boy's tears with his thumb. "Trust me, there is a life past the pain. Join me and I'll help you get there."

Jack sagged against Kyhl's chest, a great sigh shuddering his entire body as he grasped the man's shirt to cling to him. "I trust you, Kyhl," he mumbled in emotional exhaustion. "Sign me up."


	2. Kyhl's Story

:This was originally a one-off published just a few days before I decided to start the Archives of the Time Agency, but I decided to go ahead and re-publish it actually _in_ the anthology to make it easier for readers to connect some of the points of Kyhl's existance and get how he got from the 21st century to the 51st. R&R as always appreciated.:

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_**Archives of the Time Agency**_

_Kyhl's Story_

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My name is Kyhl Davies.

Wait, that's not accurate. My identity is Kyhl Davies. Kyhl Ifan Davies the Fifth, born August 19th, 4985, in New Cardiff, West California. Citizen five-eight-three-five-dash-four-six-zero-six-dash-five-five-eight-one-zero. If you check my records you'll see a slightly better than average but not stellar academic career through secondary school, followed by degrees in engineering and history at UWC. Getting something from a more prestigious off-world university might arouse suspicions. People look at a degree from a more selective school like Europa or Mars and start asking if you knew Professor So-and-So or if Doctor Whatsername is still a stickler for formatting. A large public school allows for comfortable anonymity. Anonymity is key to passing off an identity.

A genealogical search will show an ancestral lineage of namesakes of similar merit and education, but not immediately successive. A good identity can be stretched for far longer than a single generation if you take care to fly under the radar. Flying under the radar happens to be one of my natural talents. The way to do it most easily is to find a larger-than-life personality to attach yourself to. Someone who impresses people, someone who enjoys attention. Get close to that person, make yourself indispensable and yet invisible to everyone around them. Administrative assistant is the perfect role. Nobody ever notices the personal secretary, the efficient social manager, the tea-boy, so to speak. Knowing how to make a good cup of tea, or coffee, if that's the preferred beverage, is crucial to making yourself indispensable, by the way. Then all you need is the skill to get into the record keeping systems and forge a few documents, insert a believable pedigree, and stay out of trouble.

You might wonder why, if I stay out of trouble, I need to be so good at identities. Most people would never even think about it. Most people don't have to. Most people can live their natural lives without creating suspicion. It doesn't work that way when you've been forgotten by Time. You have a blank look, so I'm guessing you don't get what I mean. I'll put it bluntly. I'm immune to Time. I don't age. How old am I? Well, I do know a couple, just a couple of people who are older than me. Let's just say for now that I count centuries, not years. Yup, that old. Can I die? I think so, but it's never been tested fairly.

It's a bit ironic, because one of those people I know who's older than me has the opposite problem. He can't die, no matter how many times he gets killed, but, even though it's happening very slowly, he's getting older. I've known him since I was so young it's laughable now, younger than you are, even, but the changes are starting to show up. There's a touch of grey in his hair, just at the temples, and the lines that used to show around his eyes only when he laughed are there all the time. He can be quite vain about it, really. He'll wake me in the middle of the night just to ask me if I still find him attractive. I do, of course, very much. What? Yes, we're lovers. Three millennia and I still love him.

You're surprised love can last that long? I suppose for the sake of romanticism I should just say true love is forever, but honesty forces me to admit we've had more than our share of rocky times. Sometimes we go years without seeing each other, without even knowing where the other one is. Then one day we'll run into each other and not have to say a word to know it's been long enough and we need to be together again. He'll pull me into his arms and kiss me and it will feel as special as it did the first time.

I hadn't meant to delve into such personal details. I suppose if I'm going to tell you my story, though, I have no reason to hold back information, especially when you're obviously so eager for me to go on. I tell you I'm over three thousand years old and you show more interest in my romantic history? I suppose it's easier to deal with, easier to relate to, and therefore more fascinating. It's either that or you're just after the salacious bits. Fine, but you have to realize that when we met it was a different time, practically a different world than you know today.

The planet was crowded, although we didn't seem to notice that much. Seven billion humans and we huddled together in cities for the most part. We were practically crawling over each other, but that didn't mean we were any good at connecting with each other. Society had a lot of rules about relationships, and one of the unspoken rules was that you shouldn't talk openly about the most crucial parts of forming them. Don't laugh. I know it makes no sense now, but then it was just how it was. Some of those rules would have you shocked at our archaic thinking, but you're going to have to understand them eventually, so I'll go ahead and shock you. One of the big ones was that proper people should have relationships only with the opposite sex, and if you happened to want to sleep with someone of the same sex, you should keep your feelings hidden as if there was something shameful or offensive about it.

I know, I know. Primitive thinking. We were just taking the first baby steps toward understanding our own sexual minds, you have to understand. We used words like 'straight' and 'gay' and thought of them as two different types of people in safe, neat little categories. Good straight boys didn't look at other boys or they were gay, and gay meant being weak and emasculated. You can't imagine the confusion that caused us. Everyone pretended they didn't get crushes on other men, or other women, depending. Those who admitted their feelings were subject to teasing or even attack from the ones who were trying to uphold the tradition of repression. If you went so far as to admit you were bisexual, most people just assumed you were some kind of sex addict who needed gratification from whatever held still long enough for a shag.

That's the sort of environment I grew up in. I have to give credit to my parents. They never put any pressure on me to conform to those kind of standards, but it was ubiquitous in society, in the schools, in the media, definitely in the church. And being someone who avoided trouble by nature, I obeyed the silent dictate. In public I looked only at girls. I went so far as to do my best to live up to it in private. I'd sneak looks at photos of men, but I'd feel ashamed of it immediately and wonder why I, a good straight boy, was crossing the line into gay territory, as if the two were mutually exclusive. Once, to satisfy my concerns about my sexual identity, I slept with the only openly gay man I knew at the time, an older friend of my parents. It was.. well, let's just say there wasn't any basis for attraction and his interest was more in having a young boy for his first time than in how I might enjoy it, so I truly didn't. After that, I stuck to girls and, if I was ever tempted by a good-looking man, thought of that night with Howell and got over it quickly.

After I graduated school, I got a job in London at Torchwood. Yes, that Torchwood. Well, the one in London, at least, Torchwood One. There were eight hundred and twenty-three employees at that branch, so flying under the radar was a breeze. The only one who really noticed me was this beautiful girl who worked on the next floor up from mine, Lisa. It didn't take long before we flirted and found out we got along well, and next thing I knew, we were dating. I was completely happy and head-over-heels in love.

... Sorry. I haven't spoken about this for a long time. I didn't think the emotions, the pain would still exist. I'm fine now, I can go on. I'll skip the minutia, so suffice it to say that Torchwood One was destroyed in a battle with the cybermen and Lisa was a casualty. A partial conversion. I was so in love I couldn't accept that her condition was irreversible, but I knew for a fact I needed to hide her away, and for that I needed a Torchwood facility. The only one still viable at that time was Torchwood Three. Yes, that's the one that sat under the Cardiff Rift. I stored her in the last working cryochamber in London and set out to get myself into Cardiff before the power was cut at the London building.

You know, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I followed the team leader when he appeared outside the headquarters to hunt down a weevil and helped him knock it out. Didn't impress him at all. I tried coffee. One of the few times when that didn't work outright. He had an issue with Torchwood One so I was at a disadvantage. Finally I got his attention when I tracked down a pterodactyl in a warehouse and helped him catch it. I had a feeling it wasn't the pterodactyl, though. While we were after it, we fell together and I wound up laying on top of him. All my years of self-repression failed me when I looked into his eyes. I could tell he felt my physical reaction, and it wasn't like he could have avoided noticing it. I was laying right on him, sporting the erection of my life. I certainly didn't have any problems feeling him having the same response.

In this day and age, I might have understood my feelings, but even if I had been able to accept same sex attraction at that point, I still had Lisa to save. I thought of her and got off of him, feeling like I had cheated on her when I hadn't done anything other than accidentally land on him in a sprawl. He graciously didn't press the matter, but he did offer me the job I needed. I thought of Howell and managed to get out of the building with my mind back on my goal of reversing Lisa's conversion and not on what might have been. Over the next several months I transfered her secretly to the basement of Torchwood Three and researched every avenue I could find to bring her back to the woman I'd fallen in love with. There was so little information at the time that I didn't realize it was doomed to fail.. nor that it was deadly dangerous.

The entire time, I had to look at him every day and pretend I wasn't doing anything more devious than fetching him coffee, which he was falling for in a big way, and cleaning up the bodies that tended to pile up behind Torchwood operations. Everyone else in the office just assumed I was nobody worth noticing, the tea-boy the boss kept around because he looked good in a suit and didn't get in trouble. I ate lunch with them every day, made small talk, showed up when their fun was over and put the gloves on to get things bright and shiny again, and they never thought to ask me if I even had any hobbies. None of them ever came around my flat to see if I wanted to go to the pub or called me up with tickets to the rugby match. I kept it that way for the sake of Lisa, but it ate at me every time I looked at _him_ and wondered if he might be thinking of that night back in the warehouse. He spent all his time with them and left me alone, and part of me wished he wouldn't.

It's all obvious now, of course. I resented his giving me space because I was angry at myself for being distracted from Lisa. He gave me space because he was being a gentleman. Inevitably, of course, Lisa's condition proved to be not only irreversible, but violent and threatening. She killed two innocent people. No, it wasn't her fault. I killed them by bringing her there in the first place. The rest of Torchwood of course found out my terrible secret, but I couldn't do what needed to be done. I tried to stop them from stopping her, choosing to defend her even if it meant betraying them, betraying _him_. It was useless, of course. She wasn't my Lisa anymore and she couldn't understand what love was. That was when she killed me.

Yes, I did say that. I also said it hadn't been fairly tested. She threw me across the Torchwood Hub. I don't actually remember hitting anything, but I know I must have been in the water at some point because I was soaked later on. I just felt myself sinking into darkness. It was terrifying. I felt nothing, I saw nothing, but I was afraid. Alone. All I could cling to was that Lisa didn't have to experience that yet. I had purchased with my life a few moments more for her to avoid this fate. The next thing I knew, I felt my body around me again. Every part of me felt like it was on fire, but it wasn't painful. That was when I realized he was kissing me. I felt the life surging from his mouth to mine. He was giving me a gift so precious, so unique, it was completely outside my comprehension. You'd think I'd show some gratitude, but all I could think of was saving Lisa. It wasn't possible, of course. He gave me every chance to take responsibility for what I had done, to end Lisa's life, but I failed. I couldn't send her to death after I had seen what it was like. Finally, he had to do it for me and let me hate him if I had to. I almost did. I wanted to, so much I ached. But deep down inside, I knew I had been wrong, so wrong I had no right to hate anyone but myself. For a while I did that, and he let me.

As time went on, I started to understand just what kind of gift he'd imparted to me. I don't think even he knew at that point, though. He knew something different had happened, I'm sure of that. He's lived a long time, and he's kissed a lot of corpses over the ages, but none of them came back. Since then we've tried to analyze it. You see, just before he kissed me back to life, Lisa had shocked him with a massive amount of energy. Twice. More than enough to kill him both times, but thanks to his problem with staying dead, he came back and then kissed me. Maybe that surge was still inside him, or maybe it was the residual resurrection energy from his coming back from the dead twice in rapid succession, but somehow he passed part of his life force into me, enough to stop the clock, enough to make Time pass me by.

There was one other aspect to his gift to me that day. It was as if he had passed on to me a small fragment of his soul as well. I'd scored fairly high on the empathic section of the psionic test Torchwood administered to all their employees, but after he brought me back, I was able to just look at him and sense things that couldn't be put into words. We could look at each other and communicate on a level deeper than words if we were willing to let our guards down. Believe me, it's a frightening thing to trust someone enough to do that, but it's also the most beautiful connection two people can make. So you see, it's more than just being two practical immortals that keeps us coming back to each other. We are, for better or worse, soulmates.

My name? What, my real name? I suppose I can tell you. The Retcon I slipped into your coffee will make it a moot point anyhow. My name is Ianto Jones.


	3. Sixteen Candles

_**Archives of the Time Agency**_

_Sixteen Candles_

* * *

Jack felt the wood crack into the back of his ankles a moment before the room took a spin, the floor coming up to bang hard into his chin so that blood filled his mouth as his teeth cut into his tongue. He attempted to push himself up, but his elbows folded weakly, his muscles responding with the coordination of overcooked pasta, the woven mats he was laying on coursing like the deck of a boat on heavy seas.

"Jack!" Kyhl was kneeling at his side in a second, rolling him carefully onto his side. "Just stay there. I thought you would dodge that one. Sorry." A handkerchief, scented of lavender, wiped the blood from his chin. "I think that's enough training for today."

"'M fine." He pushed Kyhl's hand away, not wanting the older man to see him as needing to be coddled. "Ith juth a cut." He sat up, feeling sick to his stomach, and spat out a mouthful of copper-flavored blood onto the mat between his feet.

"More like you scrambled the inside of your head." Kyhl sat back on his feet. "Remember, always turn your head to the side. Never take it on the chin."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, have time to think about that when I'm going down."

Kyhl laughed, standing and pulling Jack up with him with the same fluid movement. He slid an arm around Jack's waist to steady him while the teenager found his balance. "You fall on your face enough times, it'll become second nature."

"I'd prefer to not fall at all." Jack sulked, not liking to be beaten, even by his mentor. "How did you get behind me like that anyway? You cheated."

"I do not cheat." Kyhl looked upwards, his one habitual tell that he was being less than innocent. "I just employed some techniques you need to be prepared to deal with in a real combat situation."

"Yeah, cheating." Jack pushed away to walk on his own, his independence asserting itself over the secret enjoyment he took in having Kyhl's arms around him.

The older man ruffled Jack's golden brown hair fondly. "Opponents cheat. You expect rules in battle and you'll be dead. Now go get washed up. I'll make dinner."

* * *

Jack picked at his stir-fry, moving the snow peas and broccoli off to the side of the plate.

"I see that." Kyhl watched him with a raised brow. "Eat your vegetables."

"I don't like vegetables."

"I didn't either at your age. I had to be pretty much ordered into a decent diet by my captain before I realized they weren't that bad and gave me a lot more energy and stamina.. and agility to avoid sneak attacks." Kyhl reached across the table to mix the stir-fry together again. "Now eat them."

Jack sighed dramatically, making a face as he put a piece of broccoli in his mouth and chewed it. He gagged, half for effect, and washed it down with a swig of white tea.

"There, was that so bad?"

"Yes." Jack started to separate the components again, stopping when Kyhl cleared his throat. "What?!"

"All of them."

"But there's like.. four pieces.. of each," he whined. "Even my mother never nagged me like this."

"I'm sure she did. She cared about you just like I do. I didn't expect you to act like a child, especially today."

Jack stiffened, giving Kyhl a scowl before setting into his dinner with determination, his chin jutting out in defiance. He shoveled it in his mouth without stopping, swallowing the last of it in less than five minutes. "There. Happy?"

Kyhl grinned, watching him with his chin on his hand. "Very. Now you can stack the dishes and clear the table." He got up, disappearing into the larder. Jack craned his neck to peek after him as he cleaned up, trying to do it to Kyhl's exacting standards. He just managed to get everything over to the sink when he heard Kyhl set something on the table behind him.

"Ready for dessert?"

Jack turned back, grinning as he saw an attentively decorated apple tart sitting in front of his chair, sixteen lit candles stuck into it in a circle. "That's for me? Why is it on fire?"

"It's a very old tradition." Kyhl waved him over to stand in front of him, putting his hands on his shoulders. "One candle for every year you've been alive. You blow them out and make a wish to yourself."

"Why would I do that? What am I supposed to wish for?" Jack had a hard time getting some of Kyhl's 'traditions'. Nobody he knew kept them, but then again, not everyone was a history buff to the extent that Kyhl Davies was. Nor was everyone the director of Earth's agency in charge of maintaining quantum continuity. In other words, a Time Agent who traveled the Rift through any point in Earth's past.

"I don't know, whatever you want. You're not supposed to tell anyone if you want it to come true."

"I don't get how blowing out candles is supposed to make anything happen. Wishes are silly. If you want something to change, you have to act, not wish."

"You're being socially intolerant again," Kyhl chided gently. "When you encounter past civilizations, you're going to have to respect that they often do very silly things without having a decent reason for it. It just makes them happy. Now blow them out. They're melting all over the tart."

Jack sighed and leaned forward, blowing out the flames. "Hey, Kyhl?"

"Yes?" Kyhl turned to open the drawer of the kitchen hutch.

"When's your birthday? I've been here over a year now and we never blew out candles for you."

"August nineteenth, but birthdays aren't so important once you're my age."

"How old is that?" Jack broke off an edge of the tart, sneaking it into his mouth.

"Old enough." Kyhl looked over his shoulder. "Now close your eyes."

"I will once you tell me how old you are."

Kyhl sighed, rolling his eyes. "Why don't you guess?"

Jack thought about it critically, comparing Kyhl's features to other faces he knew the age of. "... Twenty-five."

"Amazing. Will you close your eyes now?"

Jack grinned, closing his eyes obediently. He felt his arm lifted, his heart skipping a beat as warm leather was wrapped around it. "Can I open them yet?!"

"Go ahead."

Jack opened his eyes, gazing down in wonder at the dark brown strap. He quickly reached up with his other hand and lifted the flap that hid the miniature interface board, running his fingers over it as it lit up. "Does this mean..?"

Kyhl nodded. "You're an official Time Agent, James Jackson Harper. Happy birthday."

* * *

Jack flopped onto his back on the futon, stroking the leather strap softly once more. It was hard to sleep, knowing he had it within his power to travel to any year he wanted to, with the exception of the few years that were the most important to him. He held still as Kyhl shifted in his sleep, throwing an arm over Jack's waist protectively.

Kyhl had explained to him that there had been a long period in the eighteenth through the twenty-fifth centuries when it was only socially acceptable for two people to sleep in the same bed if they were in a sexual relationship, a concept that had Jack sure his mentor was pulling his leg. He hadn't slept alone in his life except for the period from when he'd been held captive by the Shriekers until Kyhl had taken him from the infirmary at Boe, but he hadn't yet had sex with anyone. Today he had turned sixteen, though, an age when he was considered mature enough to make his own choices about who to love.

The man next to him had never shown any inappropriate behavior while he was still a child. He had treated him with the same affectionate gestures Jack's own father had, hugs and kisses on the cheek. Still, Kyhl wasn't his father. If he was twenty-five, he was only nine years older than Jack himself. In the year they'd been together, Jack couldn't remember seeing Kyhl with a lover once, but he'd occupied his student's fantasies for several months.

Jack rolled over onto his side, studying the older man's face. His skin was smooth, softer to the touch than Jack's even, with a fairer complexion. His eyes were framed by a fringe of dark lashes under expressive eyebrows and a high forehead that was most often hidden by a dark fringe of bangs that escaped the shoulder-length waves of his chestnut hair. His mouth, even in sleep, seemed on the verge of a secretive smile. He was beautiful. Jack couldn't understand why a man with a face like that didn't have a lover.

_If I want something to change, I have to act, not wish._

Jack leaned forward, slowly, and pressed his lips to Kyhl's, laying his hand lightly on his bare chest. Time seemed to stop as their skin touched, a shiver running over his entire body. He felt the kiss returned, Kyhl's lips parting invitingly, his arm pulling Jack closer.

Kyhl pulled away just far enough to breathe, opening his grey eyes, that smile that held a hundred mysteries forming. "I guess you're not a kid anymore."

Jack laid his head on Kyhl's shoulder, breathing in the scent of lavender on his skin. "Of course not. I'm a Time Agent."

* * *

:Please leave a review or comment. Your input makes my day, seriously.:


	4. Stowaway

_**Archives of the Time Agency**_

_Stowaway_

* * *

Kyhl ducked into the alley to catch his breath, laughing as he listened to the roar of the crowd in the distance at the end of the street.

Jack fell in next to him, snickering as he leaned against the wall on one hand. "Okay, you're telling me that changing a couple of words on one message is going to change Europe?"

Kyhl nodded. "Schabowski was confused because he never got filled in as to the reason for opening the border. The East Germans only wanted to get the Czechoslovakians off their back by letting a few refugees out through Berlin, not give up control of their border. When Schabowski got our note, he thought it was pretty much granting a free-for-all starting immediately. Once he announced it as such, there was no holding back the public rush."

Jack looked around the corner at the flood of humanity forcing its way through and even over the huge wall. "So what happens now?"

"A pivotal moment in the collapse of European communism that will serve as a rallying image for democracy well into the next century." Kyhl joined him, putting his hand on the back of his eighteen-year-old lover and favorite agent. "The Berlin Wall is torn down and Germany is reunified."

"And nobody remembers that six of those refugees were infected with vampirism."

"We staked every last one of them, and in the confusion of the border opening, nobody will notice six refugees who aren't accounted for." Kyhl pulled Jack into the alley for a kiss. "Another job well done. How about we take a little vacation?"

Jack slid his arms around Kyhl's waist. "Fine, but I want to go somewhere that isn't so uptight about us being two men. I'm sick of not being able to kiss you in front of everyone."

By the time the crowd had reached the alley, the Time Agents had vanished in a vortex of orange lights.

* * *

Jack ran out of the cramped corridor, kicking aside a silver bag of refuse, and looked around at their new surroundings. "Where are we?"

"New Harlem, also known as Saturn Orbital Five." Kyhl joined him at a more leisurely pace, closing the cover on the interface board of the vortex manipulator wrist strap he wore. "Year thirty-seven oh eight. Specifically the Promenade, but on a gas-mining and refueling station that's not so much glamorous as it is loud and raucous."

Jack snickered. "You do love slumming it, don't you."

Kyhl offered his arm. "It keeps things in perspective. Besides, places like this offer a unique take on reality."

"How many worlds have you been to, Kyhl?" Jack took the arm, sliding his hand down to hold his lover's. "We've been to, what, Luna a half a dozen times, Mars, Europa, and I don't know how many orbitals and space stations."

"I've been to a few places you can't reach by normal means even in the 51st century, but I'm afraid that's all I can say." He winked. "Need to know basis and all that."

"I'm your boyfriend _and_ the most senior agent other than you. Most senior recruit. I'm the Face of Boe!"

Kyhl lifted Jack's hand to kiss it. "And one day I'll tell you everything, I promise. Right now you just have to trust me."

"Fine." Jack couldn't hold his pout convincingly. "It's not like I have a choice. So what can we do here?"

"How about you do me?" offered a voice with the low cockney accent common to most orbital residents. A young man a couple years younger than Jack stepped out from under an awning to drape himself on Jack's free arm, one arm wrapping around the agent's neck while his other hand slid down the front of his jeans. "Two hundred chits, I'm yours for an hour."

Jack ducked out from under the arm. "Yeah, and I get whatever diseases you've got for the next six weeks. Forget it."

The young prostitute dug a badge out from under his dirty undershirt, hung around his neck on a leather cord. "I'm clean. Look, here's my brothel license right here. A hundred chits, twenty minutes, I'll take care of both of you. C'mon, where you gonna find a bargain like that without findin' out you're doing a manimal? Sure, they're an okay fuck, but never know if they're gonna bite your willie off."

Kyhl broke into a laugh. "How much for the whole night?"

"Kyhl!" Jack pushed the prostitute off his arm as he tried to attach himself there again. "We don't even know this guy."

"According to his license he's Jady Gavin. Nice to meet you, Jady. I'm Kyhl, this is Jack."

Jady flashed a smile, switching his attentions to Kyhl and sliding up next to him. "Hi, Kyhl. You serious 'bout the whole night?"

"Sure, how much?"

Jack fumed and grabbed Kyhl's wrist, jerking him away from his new suitor. "Excuse me, Jady Gavin. I have to have a chat with _my_ boyfriend." He pulled him under the awning. "What is it with you? Are you serious about picking him up? I mean, I don't mind threesomes. I really like your taste in girls, in fact, but why do we need another guy? And why a whore?!"

"Have you taken a look at him, Jack?"

Jack looked past Kyhl to where Jady was waiting, chewing on a fingernail absently. He wasn't tall, maybe 5'9", with dirty light brown hair hanging in his blue eyes in an unkempt mop. His sleight frame was hardly hidden under the filthy sleeveless tee and the torn bottom half of a pair of grey canvas coveralls held up by a black studded leather belt. The mining boots he wore were scuffed to a nondescript mud color and looked as if they had been fashioned with someone twice his size in mind. "He's kind of cute, in a sleeps-in-a-dumpster sort of way."

Kyhl sighed patiently. "Look again, Jack. Really look at him."

Jack took a deep breath and tried again, studying the young man more closely. His eyes darted to the side every few moments as if he was expecting someone or something to lunge out of the scenery. He was more than just slim, he was thin, underfed. As he flipped his head to clear his hair from his eyes he exposed a bruise on his cheekbone. "Yeah, he doesn't even look healthy. I don't get what you want him for. He's not worth two hundred chits."

"Maybe it's worth more than that to get him off the streets for the night and make sure he gets a decent meal." Kyhl turned away and walked back to Jady. "So how much do you want?"

Jady crossed his arms, ready to negotiate. "A thousand chits."

"Done." Kyhl shook hands with him. "Now where can we get some dinner that won't give us food poisoning?" He put an arm around Jady and looked back to Jack, offering out his other hand. "You coming?"

Jack scowled, but took it. "Just remember who's going home with you."

* * *

"So m'mum dumped me in the dock on her way through and since they couldn't trace her and nobody could figure out who m'father was and I was on company property, I kinda got stuck here 'cause I don't have citizenship on any'f the territories, much less Earth." Jady paused to start in on his fourth bowl of noodles. Jack watched him with a look of fascinated disgust. He'd eaten most of the food on the table, even though it tasted like it had come from the station's recycling chutes rather than real rations. "Persona non grata, that's the legal term for it. But it's okay, 'cause you don't have t'have citizenship t'get a brothel license. Just have t'pass a physical. You gonna eat that?"

"Help yourself." Kyhl pushed his dim sum closer to Jady, seeming entranced by his tale.

"Cheers!" Jady speared one with his chopsticks, continuing to talk with his mouth full. "It's not bad work. Get t'meet interesting people and all that, but I gotta say the hours are pretty bad. Half the time you're just out there waitin' for a trick t'look your way, and the miners go for the women first. Had a pimp offer t'take me on if I got the snip and a boob job, but that's just not me, y'know?"

"Far too great a price to pay in my opinion. So you're working freelance, then?" Kyhl poured a cup of tea for their guest.

Jady chewed his lip. "Not really. I sorta owe some money for some fines, but the constable said I could stay outa jail and work if I gave him half my take under the table." He brightened, giving them a grin. "Which is why I'm glad I met you guys. If I didn't put in a payment tomorrow morning, he'd've done more'n knock me in the face again."

"Nice sob story." Jack leaned across the table and grabbed the last dim sum before it vanished into the starving street boy. "Bored me to death. Kyhl, when are we gonna go to bed?"

Kyhl gave Jack one of those secretive smiles. "You'll have to excuse him, Jady. Likes to get down to business. Do you mind?"

Jady shook his head, wiping his mouth on his arm. "Fine with me. I'll show you where the public dorms are."

* * *

Jack paced the room, casting glares at the closed bathroom door. "At least you're making him take a bath."

Kyhl lay stretched out on the bed, his hands folded behind his head. "What is it you have against him?"

"He's a street rat and a criminal."

"You never know when it might come in handy to know how to survive as a street rat, Jack." Kyhl pushed himself up on his elbows. "Maybe you could learn something from him."

"From him?" Jack crossed his arms sullenly. "I doubt he's ever even read a history book."

"Not everything can be learned in books. You learned quite a bit from real life, didn't you?"

Jack stiffened. "That's different. I was fighting to save my home, my life."

Kyhl shrugged and laid back down. "So is he."

Jack started to reply, but the bathroom door opening made him snap his mouth shut. Jady walked out, a towel wrapped around his scrawny hips, his hair now resembling a wet mop. He sat on the edge of the bed, jutting his chin up to give off as much of an air of confidence as he could muster. "So we gonna get down t'it or what?"

Kyhl yawned, rolling onto his side. "I'm actually pretty tired. I think I might go to sleep. Don't mind me, though. And don't worry, you're still getting paid, even if you just go to sleep." He smiled, beckoning Jack over. "Kiss goodnight?"

Jack's eyes widened. "What? You're leaving me alone with him?"

"Hardly. I'm not going anywhere." Kyhl sat up to get his kiss, giving Jack a soft nuzzle. "It's not like you don't know what to do." He laid back, closing his eyes.

Jack eyed Jady. "Kyhl, I know you're still awake."

"No, I'm not." Kyhl turned away, pulling the covers up over his head.

"Damnit!" Jack walked around to the other side of the bed. "Move over. You're not sleeping in the middle."

Jady stood, watching Jack undress and get into the bed. "You want the lights?"

Jack stared at the ceiling, his arms crossed over his chest. "I don't care. I'm going to sleep. You do what you want."

Jady looked down uncertainly, then at the door. He sighed and slid off the towel before climbing into the bed. He turned off the lamp on the nightstand and rolled onto his side, gazing at Jack's profile.

"... What?" Jack glanced sideways at their bedmate, illuminated in the pale peach glow of Saturn that shone through the tinted windows of the station.

"Just thinkin' how lucky you are. Got someone like Kyhl t'be nice to, warm bed ever' night, never gotta worry where your next meal's comin' from." Jady folded his hands together under his cheek, smiling wistfully.

"At the moment I'm not feeling like being nice to him." Jack elbowed Kyhl, who continued to play out a convincing slumber. "... Why are you staring at me? Go to sleep, will you?"

Jady tilted his chin down, his lower lip pressed out just beyond its upper partner. "Can't I get a kiss g'night, too? I'll drop straight off after, I promise."

Jack growled under his breath, then rolled over and gave Jady the quickest brush of his lips he could manage before flopping back into his original position. "Satisfied? Now leave me alone." He closed his eyes, determined to escape into dreams. Just as sleep took him, he felt a skinny body snuggle up to his side. Resigned, he let his arm wrap around Jady and drifted off.

* * *

Jack woke up, rubbing the side of his face groggily. Kyhl had turned during the night, his cheek pressed to Jack's shoulder and his arm over his chest. Looking at him Jack felt the anger of the night before soften and melt away. He scooted down so he could kiss his lover's lips, tasting them softly over and over until he felt the kiss returned, Kyhl's embrace around him tightening as he awoke.

"Morning. You want some coffee?" Kyhl kissed Jack's nose before getting up, not really waiting for an answer.

"Mmhmm." Jack stretched. He never drank coffee until Kyhl introduced him to it. Now he felt like he couldn't start his day without a cup or two of the bittersweet brew. He watched him for a moment with a lazy smile, then sat up, looking to the other side of the bed, empty, but with the covers thrown back. "Where's the whore?"

"He has a name, Jack. Jady, remember?" Kyhl tapped his fingers on the desk as he waited for the coffee pod machine to finish its cycle.

"Whatever." He got out of bed and knocked on the bathroom door. "Jady? You want some coffee before you go?"

"No need to try to kick him right out."

"I'm not kicking him right out. I offered coffee." Jack knocked on the door again, then opened it when there was no answer. "It's empty. His clothes are gone, too."

"Really?" Kyhl filled two mugs from the machine. "I'm not too fond of these things. They don't allow for any finesse or artistry in the brew."

Jack moved swiftly to pick up his pants off the floor, feeling the pocket, then checked Kyhl's pants, hung neatly over the back of the chair. "Shit! Our wallets are gone."

"You don't say. They don't have real cream here. Never manage to get real cream in space, have you noticed that?"

"Kyhl, are you even fucking listening? Your little charity job cleaned us out!" Jack looked down at his wrist. "Oh shit oh shit!"

"What now?"

"That little bastard stole my wrist strap!"

Kyhl failed to look at all surprised, sipping his coffee and holding out the other mug to Jack. "We should probably go find him before he gets into trouble with it then, shouldn't we. Right after we finish our coffee."

* * *

Kyhl walked down the access tunnel in the maintenance level of the station, looking at his interface board on his wrist strap. "Still tracking, so he hasn't tripped anywhere. Should be running into him in about a hundred feet."

Jack clenched his hands into fists. "I'm gonna throw him out an airlock after I get our stuff back."

"Don't be silly, Jack. You can get serious fines for littering in the space flight lanes."

"Why aren't you taking this seriously?" Jack clenched his teeth. "We fed him and treated him better than I bet anyone has ever treated him and he ripped us off."

"I know. Shows cunning and resourcefulness, doesn't it?" Kyhl stopped in front of a hatch, then hit the pressure release switch. The hatch slid open with a hiss. "You didn't stay for coffee, Jady."

Jady spun, dropping the wallet he had been rifling through. "Um, this ain't what it looks like."

Jack pushed in past Kyhl, grabbing Jady's wrist and twisting it behind him as he pushed him into the wall. "You know what this looks like? Looks like I'm gonna kick your ass, you little thief."

Kyhl collected the dropped wallet, then checked Jady's pockets for the other one, taking that as well. He tucked both wallets into his coat pocket. "Did you get enough chits to satisfy your debts?"

"M'sorry!" Jady swallowed, closing his eyes tightly. "Don't kill me, please?"

Jack yanked Jady's wrist up until he cried out, snapping the strap off his arm. "This doesn't belong to you, either. I really should break your neck."

"But he won't." Kyhl reached up and gently lifted Jack's hand until he let go of his captive. "We have your wrist strap. Why don't we just go, okay, lover?"

Jack fastened his wrist strap back on. "Next time don't mess with things you don't understand. You're lucky you didn't get yourself killed playing around with this. Just stick to whoring, why don't you?"

Jady turned around, pressing back against the wall. "But you've got everything. What do I got?"

"You have our cash." Kyhl gave him a smile as he ushered Jack back out. "We've got to get going. Tracking him down took longer than I thought. Our event is just about to open up."

"Fine. I've had just about as much holiday as I can stand. I just want to go home." Jack followed Kyhl as he made his way toward the core of the station. He could feel the energy building in his vortex manipulator.

Kyhl stopped, looking up as the air crackled, the Rift beginning to reach out with tendrils of light toward them. He held his hand out to Jack, who took it, stepping close to put his arm around Kyhl's waist. Kyhl gave him a quick smile, then hit the activation key. As the Rift engulfed them, Jack felt something collide into his back, almost knocking him loose from Kyhl. He grasped the other agent desperately, a weight hanging from his left leg feeling as if it might pull it right out of the socket.

The Rift dumped them onto the roof of the old train station that served as the headquarters of the Time Agency. Kyhl stumbled, Jack rolling free as he hit hard on one knee. He slammed into something that gave way, slowing him to a stop. He pushed himself up to his hands and knees, bruised but intact. "What the hell hit me?"

Kyhl walked past him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder as he moved by. "We had a stowaway." He knelt by the something Jack had crashed into, checking it over. "You okay, Jady?" He helped the shaken passenger up into a sitting position. "Anything broken?"

Jack pushed himself up to his feet. "That's it. I'm throwing him off the roof! He could've killed us!"

"You're fine, so what exactly would be the point of killing him?" Kyhl put his hand to Jady's cheek. "That probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. You have no idea what it means to trip the Rift."

"I'm thinkin' it was kinda dumb," mumbled Jady, looking around in a daze, then squinting up at the blue sky above him. "Where are we?"

"Earth. 51st century Earth." Kyhl stood, pulling Jady up with him. "I'm going to have to forge you a citizenship if you're going to be a Time Agent."

"What?!" Jack threw his hands up in the air. "You can't be serious, Kyhl! He doesn't know anything, he's not even from this century!"

"I know, we've got a lot of work ahead of us to get him ready." Kyhl showed Jack that mysterious smile again. "You see, the Agency's getting too big for me to be running all over time with you, and you're good enough to handle situations without me now."

"What are you saying, Kyhl?" Jack's hands dropped limply to his sides.

"I'm saying I've got to start tending to my responsibilities as Director, Jack. I've got to step aside and be the one you come home to, the reason for you to come back." Kyhl looked to Jady, then back to Jack. "Agent Harper, meet your new partner."

Jady tilted his head, squinting at Jack in the sunlight. "Do I get a wrist strap as big as his?"

* * *

_Twenty-seven years later.._

The agent once known as Jady Gavin smirked down the sight of his pistol, then glanced down at the barrel of the revolver pointed back at him. "You put on weight," he commented with a cheery smile.

"You're losing your hair," grinned the other man.

"What're you wearin'?" he asked, glancing at his opponent's great coat.

"Captain Jack Harkness," came the explanation from his ex-partner. "Note the stripes."

He raised a brow, unimpressed. "Captain John Hart. Note the sarcasm."

* * *

:Okay, I know it's wildly speculative, but it's fanfic, I'm allowed. I just think it explains some of John's personality and abandonment issues. Tell me what you think. **Reviews make me write!** Cheers!:


	5. The Longest Leap

:One of the greatest shows in the history of quantum fiction, _Quantum Leap_, ended in May of 1993 after 96 episodes. In the canon-version of the final episode (which I recreate in the prologue below and don't claim to have any creative ownership of to the point of the leap), Sam helps to save Al's future, but when his mission ends and he makes the leap, somehow the entire Quantum Leap project vanishes and Sam never makes it back home. Here's my take on what happened to Sam and how a certain Time Agent got a case of m-preg. Sam Beckett, Al, and Beth belong to Quantum Leap, Belisarius Productions, and Universal TV.:

* * *

_**Archives of the Time Agency**_

_The Longest Leap_

* * *

Dr. Sam Beckett looked at the woman whose room he had just appeared in. "Beth?" he asked.

She turned, startled. "Who are you, how did you get--" Naturally there was panic in her eyes.

"I'm not here to hurt you," he said. Somehow he had to convince her. "I'm here to help you, and to help Al." Al was his best friend, Al had stuck with him throughout this entire experiment gone wrong horribly wrong turned amazingly beautiful gift.

She shook her head, confused. "You're a friend.. of Al's?" He could see the pain in her eyes. She thought her husband was dead, a victim of the war in Vietnam. She was going to remarry, even though Al was the only man she could ever truly love. Now Al was relying on him to make her stop, to make her wait for him to come home from the prisoner-of-war camp.

"Yeah," he said, his voice choked with emotion. "I'm a friend of Al's." Al had saved his life so many times, saved his sanity, given him back his memory of who and what he was, and was now waiting desperately in the year 1999 for him to save his marriage, to set right what had gone wrong. "Do you think we could sit?" He was half afraid she might faint when he told her. He was even afraid he might faint, not knowing if he could convince her of the truth. He certainly didn't look like he'd come from the Navy or anyone else who should be telling her.

She nodded and they sat. Her on a chair, him on the floor. "I'm going to tell you a story, Beth. A story with a happy ending. But only if you believe me."

"And if I don't?" Her face bore a look of curiosity, but also a hint of defiance.

"You will," he assured her quietly. She had to. "I swear you will. But instead of starting with 'Once upon a time..,' let's start with the happy ending." He smiled. "Al's alive. And he's coming home." He felt his heart warm as he watched her break into tears of joy. He looked over to the photo of Al, looking so much younger than the Al Sam saw in holographic projections, his only guide to fix the wrongs and make them right, and saw the image itself start to change, to gain the blue aura glow that was usually only reserved for him. He tilted his head in curiosity, then felt the quantum force pulling him in as well. He must have succeeded, he had fixed the past and Al would have his future.

Somehow this leap felt different. The cool of quantum flow felt more physical, more heated. It was chaotic, tendrils of orange and yellow pulling at him from every angle, and he didn't feel alone. He had no time to analyze the experience as he dropped from the flow into a new scene, a new person, a new life as he had done almost a hundred times before. It was time to find the wrong and make it right in hopes that one day the powers that kept tossing him around from person to person within his own lifetime would let him go home.

He swallowed and tried to deal with the sense of disorientation. He would have to pick up information fast if he was to survive. David Bowie was singing with Bing Crosby on the television. 1977? He looked up to see an attractive brunette woman in a red sweater, a leather skirt to her knees, and a pair of boots standing in front of him, her mouth open in shock. Great, another situation where he had come into the middle of an argument and he had no idea what side he was supposed to be defending. He smiled, trying to diffuse the situation. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"Oi!" A man's voice came from behind him. "Who's this, then, Maggie? I turn m'back five minutes and you got another man in your room?!" Sam whirled to find himself facing a very angry man in a pair of overalls and a thermal shirt. "I don't need any of your shenanigans, you little hussy! We're through!" He stormed out, much to Sam's relief, slamming the door behind him. Now he only had to deal with the woman, and she looked a lot less dangerous.

He turned back to face her, trying his disarming smile again. "It'll be fi--" His attempt at pacification was cut off by a well-aimed fist to his jaw that sent him flying backwards onto the bed. The woman reached down and grabbed his collar, yanking him up as she leaned over him, her face contorted with rage.

"I don't have any idea what you just did, but get the hell out of my body!"

Sam blinked, catching his reflection in a mirror from the corner of his eye. He looked to the side to see what face he was wearing for this leap. It was a handsome one, that was for sure. He was in his early thirties, with dark brown hair and blue eyes, chiseled and yet boyish features, dressed in clothes that were clearly from nowhere near the 70's. He was, in fact, wearing a German World War I uniform, with captain's stripes. This was going to be his most confusing leap yet. His head dropped back on the pillow. "Oh.. boy.."

* * *

Sam rubbed his jaw where he had taken the decidedly unfeminine crack to his chin. "Who are you and what do you mean your body?"

The woman glared daggers at him. "The body you're in, it happens to be mine. Look, look at me!" She gestured to her torso. "I'm a woman! What did you do?"

"You mean that's not your body, this is?" Sam sat up as she stepped back. "I am so sorry. I don't know what happened. I was in the middle of a leap and everything changed. Why am I.. are you dressed like a German from World War One? Are you an evil leaper?"

The woman raised a brow. "I don't even know what that is. I'm a Time Agent. I was heading home, finished my mission, supposed to be meeting my boyfriend for dinner in an hour, and next thing I know I'm standing in some strange bedroom in the twentieth century or thereabouts, looking at my own body in front of me and I've got tits! Nice tits, but still.." She adjusted her bra in the mirror, then ran a hand over her chest appreciatively.

Sam shook his head, trying to make sense of the situation. "You're from somewhere other than the twentieth century? I'm a time traveler, too, of a sort. I'm from nineteen ninety-nine. I'm a quantum physicist. I don't understand, you leap full body? How do you transport mass through quantum space without an exit singularity?"

The woman put her hands on her hips. "Did I say I was a quantum physicist? I'm just a Time Agent. I Rift trip. I know how to operate the vortex manipulator and I understand the basics I need to get from one place to another, but all that crap you're talking about is for the techs to work out." She laughed drily. "Believe me, once this is all sorted out I'm gonna crack some heads to make sure they figure it out because I am not finding this fun! Shit, these underwear are crawling up my ass and I have to piss." She opened a door, found the bathroom, and walked in, leaving the door open. Sam turned away, hearing her go about her business. "I can't even stand up to do this," she muttered.

"Uh, I know what it's like, if it helps. I've been a woman a few times. Well, been in a woman's place, had her aura, so it's basically the same as being stuck in her body. I was a pregnant woman once. I've even been a chimpanzee. Once I fix the wrong to a right it'll all sort itself out, I promise you, Maggie. I just have to wait for Al to tell me what to do."

"Do I look like a Maggie to you?!" The woman washed her hands, kicking the handle of the toilet to flush it. "My name is Jack. Jack Harper."

"Sorry, at the moment you really do look more like a Maggie than a Jack. I'm Sam, by the way. Sam Beckett." He offered out his hand. Jack's hand. Jack took it with Maggie's hand, giving it a firm shake, her eyes still narrowed. He pulled his hand back. "You might want to loosen your grip there if you don't want to rouse people's suspicions. I don't know how long we'll be like this."

"You said something about an Al telling you what to do?" Jack crossed her arms. "Who is he and how do you contact him? I want this fixed as soon as possible. I happen to like my body."

"I can understand that. I think the one you're in right now is very attractive, too, but I can see your point. I haven't been in my own body in about five years. I kind of miss it." He recalled the original question as Jack cleared her throat pointedly. "Oh, right, Al. I don't control him. He shows up when he tracks me, using Ziggy to help him project a hologram so we can communicate."

Jack looked at the TV, where David Bowie was now singing 'Heroes'. "You're on drugs, aren't you."

"Not that Ziggy. Ziggy is the name of my computer back home."

"So how long does it take for him to track you?" She made her way out to the living room, sitting down on the couch and sliding down, her knees apart.

"Usually not more than an hour. A lot of the time it's just a few minutes." Sam sat down next to her. "You're wearing a skirt. Try keeping your knees together. You'll get used to it."

Jack rolled her eyes and assumed a more ladylike posture. "That better?"

Sam nodded, then looked up with a grin as he heard the soft whoosh that accompanied a holographic initiation. "That should be him. Al?"

The man who stepped out of the light and formed into a seemingly solid form was certainly not Al. He was much younger, with short brown hair worn in a carefully arranged muss, grey eyes, and a boyish face. He was also taller, at least six foot by Sam's estimate, and dressed in a long gray overcoat with a straight collar. "Sorry, took me a while to put the notes together and figure out how to do this." He gestured to the handheld Ziggy interface. "Are you Sam Beckett?"

Sam nodded. "Where's Al?"

"I don't know," said Jack, looking sideways at Sam. "What are you looking at? There's nothing there."

"Sorry," Sam apologized. "I'm the only one who can see the hologram most of the time."

"You mean she can't see me? Oh, wait, she's where Jack wound up?" The young man grinned. "The sexual connotations of this are rather distracting."

Sam stood up. "Look, I need Al. Who are you?"

"Kyhl Davies, Director of the Time Agency." He tapped a few buttons on the console. "Your computer says Al doesn't work here anymore. Not that anyone does. I found the place in a time loop, so it's been cut off from the timeline." He looked up. "Sorry, Sam, you're a paradox. A technical glitch, but I have a friend, a Doctor, who I'll get working on it as soon as I can. Right now we have to deal with you being Jack and Jack being.. wow, he has a nice figure."

Jack crossed her legs, kicking at the coffee table. "You on hold or something? I'd like to be kept in the loop if it's okay."

Sam looked down at her. "There's a problem. Something about a time loop. I'm a paradox. Oh God, I'm never going to get home, am I.."

"Relax," said Kyhl confidently. "Fixing paradoxes is what we do here. You'll be fine. Okay, so your computer.."

"Ziggy," offered Sam. "We call him Ziggy."

"Ziggy, then," continued Kyhl, "tells me it's December twentieth, nineteen seventy-seven. You're in Cardiff, Wales, in the flat of Margaret Cooper, except.. why does this thing keep going on the fritz like this?"

"Give it a little smack on the side. The circuits on that thing aren't quite aligned."

Kyhl smacked the edge of the handheld with the heel of his palm, brightening. "That did it, thanks. Apparently there's a problem you need to.. oh, so you fix paradoxes, too, so you're almost in the same line of work as us.. anyway, back to the point. Maggie just got dumped by her abusive boyfriend Randall. Ew, judging by his photograph that's not a bad thing, honest. The issue is, she's supposed to have a baby in nine months time."

"And?" Sam spread his hands out. "Am I supposed to get Randall and her back together?"

"According to Ziggy, no. He's not the father." Kyhl looked up. "Jack is. Well, Jack's body, which you're currently wearing." His eyebrows arched. "Jack is the father! I wonder if I ever met his child."

Sam looked down at Jack, who was glaring peevishly at him. "Um, how the heck is that supposed to work?"

"Honestly, do I have to explain the birds and bees to you? Jack can show you the mechanics if you've never done it."

Jack frowned. "What? What's going on?"

Sam took a deep breath. "Kyhl says--"

"Kyhl?!" Jack jumped up. "Your hologram is my boyfriend?! Let me talk to him!"

"He can hear you, and see you. He just can't make you hear or see him."

"Tell him I wish I could. It'd be a hell of a three-way." Kyhl looked Jack over with a smile.

"Do you mind?! This is already a little awkward!" snapped Sam. "Look, Jack, Kyhl says in order to fix this, Maggie, that's you, has to have a baby. Um, my baby."

Jack tipped her head forward, her brow furrowed. "Are you telling me I've got to get pregnant? With _myself_?"

"Maybe we can do artificial insemination." Sam turned away, pacing, his cheeks red. "It's not like I'm looking forward to it."

Kyhl shrugged. "I'm sure Jack would enjoy shagging himself. What's the problem? You don't like women?"

"What? Of course I do." Sam looked back to Kyhl. "Doesn't it bother you, the idea that I, in the body of your gay lover, would have to sleep with your gay lover, in the body of some woman you don't even know?"

"Believe me, he likes the avant garde stuff." Kyhl grinned. "I bet part of him would want to take pictures."

"What is he telling you?" Jack followed Sam's eyes toward Kyhl's general direction. "Kyhl, how did this happen in the first place? When do I get my body back?"

"Did you tell him about leaping?" Kyhl looked to Sam.

"I tried, but I'm not sure he got it."

Kyhl nodded. "Well just tell him it's like an involuntary possession, and you accidentally possessed him in the middle of his Rift trip, knocking him out here, and knocking Maggie into the Rift. Oh, don't worry, we've got her essence safely tucked away in a local facility, stored up and waiting for when everything gets sorted."

"Well that's good news. I was a little worried about her if she wasn't in the waiting room." Sam turned to Jack, repeating Kyhl's explanation.

"And how long before everything is sorted?" Jack shifted uncomfortably, adjusting her underwear. "What is with these things? I don't see the point." She bent over, sliding her panties off from under her skirt and tossing them aside. "Much better. I never wear underwear."

"I noticed," mumbled Sam, adjusting his pants.

Kyhl consulted the handheld again. "Ziggy says he doesn't know how long it'll take, but there needs to be a baby. Might I suggest lighting some candles, seeing if Maggie has any Tom Jones albums, cracking open a bottle of wine?"

"You're a lot like Al, you know that?" Sam furrowed his brow, looking back to Jack. "Not sure. It'll happen when it happens. Usually the leap initiates as soon as the problem is conclusively fixed. I don't have control over it beyond working to get the conditions corrected, sorry."

"And to get them correct, I have to get pregnant." Jack sighed. "Okay, let's go for it, then."

"I'll go check in the kitchen." Sam started out of the room.

Jack followed him. "What for?"

"A turkey baster. I'll go in the bathroom and fill it, then you can--"

"That's disgusting." Jack grabbed his arm, pulling him around to face her. "If we're going to do this, we'll do it right." She slid one arm around Sam's chest, the other around the back of his neck, and pulled herself up on her toes to kiss him, open-mouthed and passionately. Sam held onto her waist for balance, at first shocked, then finding it rather hard to resist her. He didn't often get the chance for physical passion in leaping and he was rather surprised at how strongly this body reacted to this kind of contact. Of course, he considered, she did know exactly how to turn this body on. Jack pulled her head back, grinning up at him. "I didn't realize I was so tall. It's pretty sexy."

Sam nodded numbly. "Yeah. And you're really good at kissing."

"I can't help it. In this body I'm getting an idea of what it is they're always going on about, how great I smell and all that." She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. "It's the pheromones."

Sam felt his hands sliding down to cup her bottom, blushing at the quickness of his erection. "So you don't mind..?"

"Kyhl always says I should be open to every new experience," she breathed, rocking against him. "This will definitely be a first for me."

Sam lifted his eyes at the mention of Kyhl, seeing the holographic projection grinning wolfishly at them. "... Go away, will you? I can't do it with you watching."

"But you're my boyfriend. Or he is, and you're in my boyfriend's body," protested Kyhl.

"That's exactly the point."

"Fine." Kyhl tapped on the handheld. "But I want you to tell me how it was when I see you again."

Sam relaxed as the hologram winked out. He scooped Jack up in his arms, carrying her back to the bedroom as he looked down into her eyes. "Let's make a baby."

* * *

_Nine months later..._

Sam paced the floor outside the delivery room. It had been the longest leap he'd ever taken, spending every day of the pregnancy in Jack's body, watching Jack deal with every stage of the pregnancy in Maggie's body. He had held back her hair as she threw up from morning sickness, ran out at all hours to buy her snacks when she had cravings, even rubbed her feet and back when her belly ballooned to the size of a beach ball. The past three months had also borne the additional duty of consoling her that she did not, indeed, look fat. She was still beautiful and glowing with life.

He cast a smile to Maggie's parents, getting anxious smiles in return. They had accepted Sam as their daughter's new boyfriend and didn't even make much of a fuss over the out-of-wedlock pregnancy. They were just happy that Randall wasn't the father of their soon-to-be grandchild. He felt a pang of guilt, wondering what they would think when he vanished and Jack came back to his own body. Jack would have to leave as well. He had a life back in his own time and Kyhl had suffered the strain of absence for far too long. He had seen the longing on the younger man's face when he would beg Sam to pass on the message that he loved and missed his Jack. He could see it on his face now, his holographic presence pacing as nervously as he was on the other side of the room. In a way it would be for the best. Kyhl had assured him that they had prepared a set of memories for Maggie that would allow her to face motherhood without too much shock, but Maggie herself didn't know Jack, so it wouldn't mean anything to have him in her life. She was destined, according to Ziggy, to marry another man anyway, and Jack's presence would only hinder that future relationship.

Sam knew Jack. Over the past nine months they'd become close, faced with their mutual imprisonment in strange bodies, out of their own times, and relying on each other to get through the long ordeal. They'd formed a sort of intimate bond that wasn't so much that of lovers, because Sam knew Jack's heart belonged to Kyhl, but something beyond just friendship. Sam swallowed, realizing losing Jack would be heartbreaking. He'd been alone for so long, only having Al's incorporeal form for companionship, and then he had met Jack and had been able to feel arms around him when he suffered loneliness or despair.

The door to the delivery room opened, stirring Sam from his thoughts. He looked up expectantly, Kyhl moving to his side in anticipation. The nurse looked around, then gave him a nod. "Come on back, Mr. Beckett. Maggie's waiting for you."

Sam hurried to follow her. "Why haven't I leapt yet, Kyhl?" he asked under his breath. "Is something wrong with the baby?"

"I don't know." Kyhl walked through, literally, the door, his form not actually there so he could pass through solid matter. "Ziggy says it should be any time now. We have Maggie ready and waiting. She's pretty eager, in fact."

Sam forgot about the leap as he entered the room where Jack was laying, her long hair messy and loose around her shoulders as she curled on her side around a small bundle of pink blanket. He walked lightly to the side of the bed, on tiptoes, not wanting to destroy the beauty of the moment. Jack held her hand up to take his, her exhausted smile exposing the difficulty of labor and the cute little gap in her teeth. "We have a daughter, Sam."

Sam took the hand, a small laugh escaping him as he looked down at the sleeping face of the little girl. He knew he would never see her grow up, never see her learn to ride a bike or go to her prom, never walk her down the aisle at her wedding. Those joys would be for her stepfather, the man Ziggy said would raise her as his own so that she never even knew there had once been another man she could call Dad. "She's so beautiful. She has your nose. Well, Maggie's nose. The hair is yours.. mine.. you know what I mean."

Jack laughed. "I know. Did you decide on a name?"

Sam nodded. "Gwendolyn. Gwen for short. What do you think?"

"I like it." Jack looked down at their baby. "Welcome to the world, Gwen Cooper."

"Wait, what did you say?!" Kyhl's surprised look was lost to Sam as the blue glow of quantum energy encircled him, pulling him out of Jack's body. Once again he felt himself drawn from one reality to another, falling into a new place, a new body.

He opened his eyes, laying on a white bed in a strange room. The walls and ceiling seemed to be made of knobby metal, and unidentifiable bits of machinery were jumbled in every corner. He sat up, shaking his head to clear it. A slender man in a brown overcoat and a rumpled suit gave him a distracted and bemused smile from where he stood next to the bed. "Hallo there, wake up, did we?" he asked in a crisp British accent, handing Sam a mirror. "I hope you find everything's in order."

Sam took the mirror and, for the first time in six years, gazed upon his own face in his reflection. "I'm me! I leapt into my own body. But the paradox?"

"Well, we pulled you out of it. I wouldn't do this for just anyone, but Kyhl's an old and dear friend. Besides, it might be fun having a quantum physicist around for a while."

Sam raised a brow. "So who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor," he replied, offering out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Sam. Welcome aboard the TARDIS."

* * *

:Okay, don't crucify me for the potentially incestuous implications there, but keep in mind, in spite of an obvious attraction, something kept Jack and Gwen from getting together. And with Jack's memory gaps, not remembering his daughter's name is something I think might slip by. Either way, I'd love to hear what you think. **Please please please review!**:


	6. Getting MOTHERed

:This fic is a crossover involving the world of the TV series _Firefly_ and its movie version, _Serenity_, and goes along with my multi-chapter fanfic _Serenity in Cardiff. _It references and describes scenes involving the Reavers, a sadistic group of cannibalistic space pirates with some pretty horrific practices that are from the series and movie, so if you'd be too disturbed by mention of rape, cannibalism, and murder, go ahead and skip past this story. I have honestly tried to keep it as minimally graphic as needed to convey the sense of the experiences of the characters without being gratuitous in my descriptions, so I do believe I managed to keep it under M, but the subject matter itself is disturbing by nature. Firefly/Serenity and its characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Universal Pictures.:

* * *

_**Archives of the Time Agency**_

_Getting MOTHERed_

* * *

Aiden leaned over his partner's shoulder, reading the screen in front of him. "That's a girl's name, Ben. You use that handle on your MOTHER file, you're going to doom yourself to at least five years of getting your ass kicked."

Ben snickered. "Yeah, let 'em try it." He saved the file and got to his feet, stretching his muscular six-foot-four frame. "I'm using it because it's an anagram of my name. Don't matter anyway. Not like it's ever gonna get used. MOTHER is a last resort failsafe."

Aiden rolled his eyes. "Which is why you should take it seriously. This isn't a trip to the forty-eighth century we're taking. We're headed to the twenty-sixth century, the Anglo-Sino Alliance, during the Unification War."

"We're not in the war, though." Ben strode across the room to open the mission case sent over from the director's office. "We get to be..." He checked the identification cards, ".. Specialist Aiden Combs and Science Tech Six Ben Jacoby. Wow, get to use our real names."

Aiden caught the card Ben tossed to him. "We're not going to be there long enough to leave a trail and the records from the entire system got destroyed in twenty-eight twenty anyway. Didn't you read the background sheet Kyhl sent you?" He sucked in his breath as he watched Ben change into his mission disguise. His partner had the most amazing body he had ever seen, every muscle defined and trained to perfect tone, powerful and graceful at the same time. If he had half that body he'd have the confidence to watch him when he was looking, but Aiden's skills lay in the intellectual field. Davies had paired them up because Aiden was a foot shorter, better than sixty pounds lighter, and needed someone who could throw a punch to protect him. He tucked his hair behind his ear and sat down to avoid broadcasting his thoughts from the stretch of his pants across his groin.

"Course I read it." Ben glanced over his shoulder. "Ben read good, not need help from smart agent. We had writing and everything back in the twenty-first, you know."

"I didn't mean that," sighed Aiden. "I've never called you dumb or--"

"Or primitive?" Ben buckled the jacket of his Alliance Science Division uniform. "Go ahead, you can say it. Ape-man from three thousand years back, recruited straight out of the cryo-vaults. It's fine. I know my role in this operation, Aiden. I'm a United States Marine Corps gunnery sergeant when there's not even a United States left, much less a Corps, with no family, no friends outside this agency, not even an acquaintance other than the guy who delivers our meals. Don't even have a library card with my name on it in this century, which makes me highly loyal and highly expendable at the same time. I can't go back to my old life back in my own time because there's a death certificate with my name on it that says I got blown up in Afghanistan saving the farking Prince of England." He sat down to pull on his boots. "Not a problem for me, okay? You be the brains, I be the bodyguard, it all works out." He slid a KA-BAR into his boot, giving his partner a grin. "Unless you got any complaints, that is."

Aiden shook his head quickly. "No, none at all. You're the only man I want behind me." He swallowed, recalling the strict views of the twenty-first century regarding sexual roles. "You know, as my partner.. in the agency."

Ben checked his vortex manipulator wrist strap. "Yeah, well, I'd feel a little more manly with an M60E3, but looks like I'm gonna be guarding your butt with a pop-gun." He buckled on a holster with a standard issue Alliance pistol. "Practically the same as a Berretta 92 semi-auto, so it'll do."

Aiden opened the door, holding it for the taller man. "I feel safe already." He kept to himself how he longed to feel safe wrapped in those strong arms as he followed him down the hallway, watching how he walked in that tailored uniform.

* * *

Ben cleared his throat as he stepped into the director's office with Aiden. "If you're done briefing your boyfriend, sir..."

Kyhl pushed away from Jack with a final kiss, wiping the grin off his face. "Sorry, but he's going to be gone for two months."

"Two months for me, two hours for you." Jack tucked his dark blue shirt into his khaki pants, the Independent Faction uniform completed by the characteristic duster that gave them the nickname 'browncoats'. "Either way, I deserve a good sendoff." He winked to Ben, quick-drawing his period weapon that looked like a Taurus .38 revolver to the marine. "Better watch out, we're on opposite sides this time out, gorgeous."

"Good, that means your partner's not going to be trying to slide his hand down the back of my pants every time we pass in the hallways this trip." Ben looked around. "Where is he anyway?"

Jady Gavin burst into the room, one boot still in his hand. "I know, I'm late, I'm here." He walked around Ben, sliding his hand behind the bigger agent with a sly grin. "When are you gonna let me swap boys with you, Aiden? Or better yet, I can take them both."

Ben smacked Jady's arm away in annoyance. "Ain't gonna happen, Gavin. I have my tastes, and you're not on the list, trust me."

"Primitive," muttered Jady, stepping over to drape himself on his partner. "You're not in the USMC now, mate. Don't ask don't tell is long over. More like show and tell around here." He licked Jack's cheek.

Jack elbowed him off and sat on the edge of Kyhl's desk. "Keep your mind on the mission for once, will you? We're going into combat, remember."

"See, that's the perfect reason to bring Ben," protested Jady, looking to Kyhl. "Jack and me are going into one of the most fatal wars in history on the losing side of things and you're sending the agent with the most experience in combat to babysit on a milk run!"

Ben crossed his arms. "You scared, Gavin? Because holding your hand is Jack's responsibility. I wouldn't trust you to look after Aiden. He needs someone behind him he knows will have his back and won't be trying to hump it if he's gonna concentrate on his job."

"Enough," cut in Kyhl. "It's not a milk run, Jady. They'll be hopping around several moons, including some border settlements that are well in the combat zone, and the Alliance isn't known for their open-mindedness if they suspect someone is a spy, which will be their first conclusion if they figure out they're not from the Science Division." He sat in his high-back chair. "Jack and Jady, you're going to be attached to the 8th Transport Fleet of the Independent Faction, which will give you access to the frontier black so you can set the barrier buoys. We need to have a complete network set up so that Aiden can initiate the isolation field. Aiden, you have the complete list of commsats capable of carrying the signal. You'll have to get twenty out of the twenty-four online before the system will be cut off from the outside."

"So why we isolating it again?" Jady tugged on his boot. "You know, for Ben's benefit. Not part of his history, after all."

"My benefit, huh?" Ben leaned on the chair Aiden had claimed. "Mind if I take this one, Kyhl?" He smiled as Kyhl gave him a nod. "In twenty-five oh one Earth is devastated by a catastrophic plague that destroys all but seventeen thousand individuals and leaves the survivors with irreparable genetic damage resulting in the mutation known as manimalism, creating a sub-human species characterized by violence and low intelligence. The plague spreads to the rest of the Solar system with similar results, then to all the outlying colonies throughout the galactic rim. Within fifty years humans are threatened with total extinction unless there is a protected genetic source from which to repopulate Earth. The Anglo-Sino Alliance is the farthest system occupied by humans in the early twenty-sixth century that has no interbreeding with alien races, insuring a pure supply of human DNA that we need to protect from the plague, a sort of Noah's Ark. We're going to set up an isolation network that will prevent communication between any outside worlds and those inside the Anglo-Sino Alliance system until the year twenty-five seventy, when the plague will have run its course and it will be safe for the preserved humans to return."

Jady blinked. "Well, I knew that. Glad to see you read the.. thing.. Kyhl sent out."

"I'm sure you all paid close attention to it," commented Kyhl. "This isn't going to be an easy mission. The twenty-sixth century was a very dangerous time, and where you're going is one of the most brutal and uncivilized portions of it." He steepled his fingers together. "Be careful, all of you. I picked my four best agents for this job and I want them all back."

* * *

Ben stepped off the shuttle onto the surface of the planet, his breathing echoing around his ears inside the biosuit he wore. Miranda had been abandoned due to a terraforming accident according to the Alliance Science Division's records, but it had one of the most sophisticated computer networks of any of the recent colonies. It was shielded from the commsats, barely even known outside the Science Division since the planet had been declared uninhabitable only a few years after the colony had been proposed, making it an ideal place to set up the back door to the isolation net Aiden had just finished putting into place, a world where time agents could slip in and out of the system if they needed to. He wasn't expecting any trouble, but he had his pistol ready in one hand and an atmo-scanner in the other. "Stay back until I say it's safe, got it, Aiden?"

Aiden leaned against the shuttle's door in his own bio-suit. "We scanned the surface six times on the way down, Ben. There's nobody here."

"It's my job to keep you safe. If I don't whip out the weapon on at least one world this whole mission I'm gonna wonder why I came along at all." Ben turned to flash him a grin.

Aiden returned it. "It was worth it just having you along to talk to. Everyone else here is so worked up over their Unification War. At least you have a sense of humor."

"Yeah, keep it up and I'll start telling redneck jokes." Ben continued his scan of the environmental conditions.

"What's a redneck?"

"In the twenty-first it means someone from the working classes in America who, let me see if I remember it right, has a 'glorious lack of sophistication.' There was this guy, Jeff Foxworthy, made a whole career out of redneck humor."

"So tell me one of his jokes." Aiden leaned out the door, glancing around curiously.

"Not sure it'll translate to the fifty-first, but sure. If your front porch collapses and kills at least four hound dogs, you might be a redneck."

"Um, not sure I get that one, no."

Ben made his way over to the next shuttle, another ASD modified ship-to-shore that looked like it had been left behind in the evacuation. "If you go to a family reunion to find Miss Right, you might be a redneck."

Aiden furrowed his brow, trying to sort that one out. "Who is Miss Right? Was she someone who went missing?"

"No, that one's more about incest. Wait, let's see if you get this one. If your mother doesn't bother to take the Marlboro out of her mouth before telling the state trooper to kiss her ass, you might be a redneck." Ben snickered. "Always loved that one."

Aiden tapped one gloved finger against the side of his helmet in thought. "I guess redneck jokes don't work so well outside their time and place."

"Yeah, you're probably right, although some of those frontier people we've come across are dead ringers for the type." Ben lifted his head and looked around the deserted port with a sigh. "Looks like we're safe. That's the computer core building over there, right?"

Aiden hurried to catch up to him, lugging his pack of equipment. "Just give me a half hour to upload everything and we can be out of here."

"Good," answered Ben, taking the pack from his smaller partner. "I'm getting sick of the twenty-sixth. How about we hit the forty-eighth before we go home?"

"Are you ever going to get sick of that century?" Aiden shook his head with a grin.

"I doubt it. A party that lasted a hundred and twelve years? If it wasn't for the fact that it almost set back human evolution and the fact that those aliens were grooming us for brain food, it'd be heaven." Ben slid his atmo-scanner into his belt and shouldered the pack while Aiden worked on bypassing the comcore security systems to get them into the building. "Hey, we can look up those triplets we hung out with last time."

Aiden snickered. "Okay, I admit they were fun. Even if I never could tell them apart." He opened the door and stepped inside. "What were the atmo readings, anyway?"

"Oh two levels were within normal standards, didn't pick up any poisons, toxins, biological dangers, or radioactivity. Whatever went wrong, looks like it's cleared up. Not that we'll be advertising that to the Alliance, of course."

"So it should be safe to take off our helmets?"

"Yeah, but let me go first." Ben holstered his pistol before taking off his helmet, inhaling the stale air of the abandoned world for the first time. "Smells like ass, but I can breathe it."

"Sounds lovely." Aiden took off his helmet as well, hooking it onto his belt. "That's better. I feel like a fish in those things."

"Yeah, get tired of that Darth Vader breathing bit pretty quick myself." Ben shook his head to stop Aiden's query. "Pop culture, twentieth century science fiction film, Star Wars. Darth Vader was a badass villain in a life-support suit who had that whole breathing thing as his constant sound effect."

"I'll have to remember that if I go back that far." He checked his encyclopedia map. "Okay, it's right down these stairs here." He led the way to the core room, making short work of the slidecard reader and striding inside. He stopped up quickly as he saw someone sitting in the chair at the console. "Ben!"

Ben was in front of him in a moment, his pistol aimed at the back of the woman's head. "Alliance Science Division, ma'am. Turn around, please." When he got no response, he stepped around to the side. He stepped back in shock at the woman's face, or lack of one. "Don't.. don't look, Aiden. She's dead. Find another console."

Aiden sidestepped the dead woman, taking his pack from Ben and sitting down at an empty station to start his login. "Power supply is still fantastic, so it should be fine. What'd she die of?"

"Do I look like a pathologist, Aiden?!" Ben took a labcoat off a hook by the door and draped it over the woman's head. "Looks like something ate on her for a while. There's no record of what kind of accident they had here?" He kept the pistol in his hand, starting a sweep of the room to make sure they were alone.

"No," answered Aiden. "Nobody survived the evacuation, so whatever it was had invaded the atmosphere to a point where it interfered with their escape. That would imply something like a solar event, perhaps a mass coronal ejection."

"Mass coronal ejections don't chomp people's faces, Aiden."

"I don't know, okay?!" Aiden looked up at Ben, his eyes wide. "Let me just upload this thing and we'll get out of here. Just keep us safe until then."

Ben nodded, turning to cover the door, having satisfied himself they were alone in the room. "I got your back, partner."

It took less than twenty minutes before Aiden logged out, slamming his pack shut. "Okay, it's finished. Let's get out of here, Ben. I don't like this place."

"I'm all over that." Ben stepped out into the stairwell, raising his gun in front of him as he made his way up the stairs. "Wish we could just Rift jump from here."

"The Rift charge here won't be built up to a stable level for about seventy-two hours. I don't feel like hanging out here that long." Aiden stuck close to his partner, the hair on the back of his neck raising.

"I'll be a lot happier once we're off this shithole," replied the former marine, sweeping the ground floor with his pistol before heading for the door. "I'm really getting the creeps here."

He froze, pushing Aiden back against the wall next to him as he saw a shadow cross the sunlight spilling in from the open doorway. Three more shadows crossed the threshold, moving away from the port. "We got four, but looks like they're passing us by," he whispered. "I'd rather not get into a fire fight if we can avoid it. We're gonna make a run for it, and if you think that pack'll slow you down, you ditch it and just haul ass for that shuttle, you got it?"

Aiden nodded, reaching up to give Ben's arm a squeeze. "I trust you."

Ben reached up and ruffled the programmer's hair, needing to keep him from panicking. "Stick close to me, kiddo." He took a deep breath and swung out the door, pulling Aiden with him as he sprinted for the shuttle. Aiden stumbled, tossing the pack almost immediately. Ben spun around to make sure he kept up and saw the others. They looked human in shape and size, but that was all. All four of them were clothed in ripped armor that looked vaguely like leather, but without proper cleaning of the skins. Their hair was matted and overgrown, stained rust in color. When the sunlight hit their features, though, that was when he felt his stomach churn. Their cheeks, noses, lips, and eyelids bore slashes of self-mutiliation, the flesh pinned back to preserve the marring marks to maximum distortion. All of them were armed with wicked looking blades that looked disturbingly familiar to the son of a Kansas City slaughterhouse manager. In the second that it took for the information to register in his mind, the beings had turned and spotted them, roaring as they picked up a pursuit.

Ben yanked Aiden forward by his elbow. "Don't look back, just run!"

"What are they?" Aiden whimpered, but followed Ben's order, running as fast as he could for the shuttle.

Ben didn't answer, firing off his entire powerclip into the creatures with no visible effect. He caught up to Aiden at the shuttle door, pushing him inside and grabbing the rifle by the door. "Get us the fuck out of here!" He dropped to his knee, opening up with the Alliance blaster, the concussive shockwave of the pulsar beam knocking their pursuers backwards onto the concrete. He slammed the shuttle door shut and sealed the airlock as they lifted off, then stepped forward, dropping down into the passenger seat. "You okay, Aiden?"

Aiden nodded, wiping his cheek with his arm, both hands gripped tightly around the flight yoke. "Ben, do you think those things were Reavers?"

Ben looked out the window at the rapidly shrinking space port. The ship that had followed them onto the planet with its mutilated crew was visible now, a New Beijing-class Alliance troop transport by its outline, but the violet paint job was burned and marred from space battle. The hull was splashed with red stains. Bolted to the front and sides were human bodies in purple Alliance body armor, the flesh destroyed by exposure to atmospheric entry. "That would mean Reavers are real," he replied. "Cannibalistic space pirates. Leave no survivors."

Aiden looked over at him, his eyes wide with terror. "Ben, they almost--"

"Well they didn't!" cut in Ben, more harshly than he intended. "We're getting out of here." He smoothed Aiden's hair comfortingly. "It's okay, partner. We're going home, okay?" He waited until he got a nod from the younger agent, then coded in the commsat number for Jack and John's Firefly-class transport on the wave module. "How long until we're clear of atmo, Aiden?"

"Give me two minutes, I'll get you a clean signal." Aiden focused on his piloting again, his shaking hands starting to steady.

"Cool." Ben flipped on the record mode. "This is ASD Shuttle Dee Cee Eff niner seven niner on secured frequency to IFSTF Firefly Cardiff Bay. Jack, we're leaving Miranda. We got attacked on the way out. There's something down there, could be Reavers. Don't know, we just got out of there fast as we could. Things aren't what they said. Something bad happened there. It's not safe to send agents in there. We're going to have to find another place to set up as a back door. We'll make contact again at our next scheduled rendezvous. Over and out." He flipped the recording off, leaning back in his seat. "Let me know when it's good to send."

"Sixty seconds and we're out of the blackout range." Aiden turned to flash the handsome marine a grin. "Wait 'til we tell everyone back home how we got away from Reavers."

Ben was just about to respond when he heard a solid thunk next to him. He spun to see Aiden slide forward in the seat, his head catching on the yoke. He looked up to see the shadowy form of the Reaver behind the seat, the bloody club he had struck the programmer with raised once more. His brain never managed to register the blow that caused him to fall into darkness next to the young agent he had sworn to protect, his own body sliding down, his elbow clipping the send switch that sent their final message scrambling through the interference of Miranda's atmosphere, garbling it.

* * *

Aiden opened his eyes, the cold numbness draining from his body and making him wish it would stay. His head throbbed, his shoulders burned, and his wrists felt like they were being chewed into. Tipping his head back with a groan, he saw that he was hanging from alliance issue manacles, attached by a heavy chain to the walkway of a transport vessel. Everything seemed to be covered in a sticky cold slime. With a growing sense of panic, he realized it was blood, more blood than he'd ever seen in any one place. He looked around for Ben and saw the older agent laid out on a table on the opposite side of the hold, his wrists and ankles held fast to the corners. He was completely naked, blood running across his chest and belly. Aiden let out a sob of fear and grief. "Ben!"

Ben's head rolled to the side and shook, his lips forming a very quiet 'shhh' of caution to Aiden. He almost laughed in relief that the bigger man was still alive, until he saw the source of the blood that covered the ex-marine. It wasn't his, at least most of it wasn't. The bodies of a dozen Alliance soldiers hung upside down from meat hooks above the marine, their arms stripped to the bone. As one of the bodies rotated slowly, it emitted a groan, revealing the mangled man wasn't yet dead. Aiden felt bile surge into his mouth, his head swimming with shock at the horrific sight. He shut his eyes tightly, sagging in the manacles as he passed out.

Ben breathed a sigh as Aiden fainted. He wouldn't want the other agent to see any more than he had to before they died. He only hoped they wouldn't survive as long as some of the soldiers above him were. As his head came back to look upwards, he saw a face enter his field of view, or what remained of a face. He forced himself to study the Reaver, to look into the face of madness and death. The rust-coloring to the matted hair, he now recognized, was dried blood from countless victims. The Reaver reeked of it, blood older than that of their latest victims by far. His face was scarred and split practically to the bone, only thin stretched tissues holding the flesh stretched over his skull at all in some places. The creature's mouth opened, revealing a tongue split down the middle like a reptile's, the ends twitching separately to lick the severed lips that gave him an animalistic leer and reduced his speech to gutteral slurs. Ben dropped his eyes from the face to the ragged garments the Reaver wore. What he had originally thought was leather was now clearly revealed to be human skin, stripped from their victims and sewn together into a grotesque tunic. He waited for the worst, fully expecting to be butchered alive. As the Reaver grunted and climbed onto the table to straddle him, he realized that might be a worst he'd be begging for. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to be anywhere else in his head than on that ship, on that table, being raped by something that he couldn't believe had ever been human.

* * *

Ben could no longer be sure how much time had passed. He did know they were the last ones alive on the ship. The Reavers had forced them to watch the deaths of every soldier on the transport ship, bringing out fresh victims when the others finally escaped the horror of their existence with death. He and Aiden hadn't fallen to the same fate, for reasons their captors never bothered to and were unable to articulate. They had been repeatedly raped and had to listen to the screams of at least sixty men and women as they were raped, mutilated, and slaughtered, but they themselves hadn't been cannibalized, had even been kept alive with forced feedings of nutrient drinks. When there were no more soldiers to kill, the Reavers simply abandoned the ship, leaving it to drift in space. Before they had left they had released Aiden, but the young programmer hadn't spoken when Ben called to him. For what had seemed hours, perhaps even a full day, he had crouched on the floor, rocking on his feet and staring at the pile of rotting human flesh. Finally, Ben had drifted into exhausted sleep, his only refuge from the horror he had lived through. Now he had woken, and Aiden was no longer there.

He heard a clank of something being dragged over the hatchway and craned his aching neck to see what was going on. "Aiden? Hey, kiddo," he croaked, his throat parched and bruised. "C'mon, let me out, we'll call for help." A thud indicated the drop of the heavy object being dragged and Aiden's face came into view. Ben sucked in his breath as he saw the slashes across his cheeks, blood congealing like a grotesque beard. The mutilation only shallowly mirrored the empty horror in the smaller time agent's eyes. Aiden was clearly, possibly irretrievably mad, his mind utterly destroyed by the images of sadism he'd been forced to witness. "Aiden. We.. we'll get help."

He watched as Aiden moved down the table slowly, then felt his ankles unchained. "That's it. Now my hands." Aiden silently made his way up to undo the clamps over his wrists. Ben pushed himself up, weak from his ordeal, and fell from the table onto the floor. He could see now what Aiden had dragged over, a pressurized space suit. "What's that for, kiddo?" He looked up at the younger agent warily, but Aiden simpy stepped over him, walking slowly through the hatch once more. He dragged it slowly until it clanged shut. Ben swallowed, pushing himself up to his feet unsteadily as he heard the airlock seal engage. "Aiden! Aiden, open the door!" He looked over his shoulder as he heard the klaxon sound from the cargo bay, opening the inner bay door. The temperature in the cargo bay dropped by ten degrees immediately.

His eyes dropped to the pressurized suit, the only thing that would save him if the outer bay door opened. He looked up at the hatchway, seeing Aiden's face in the porthole, seeing no chance of reprieve in his empty expression. His tortured and freezing limbs seemed as if they were made of stone as he dropped next to the suit, struggling to put it on before his partner could shunt him defenseless into the raw vacuum of space. He gave one last pleading look to the door before he slipped the helmet over his head, thumbing the catch to seal it.

He never had a chance to test it as the cargo bay opened into black space, sucking the air out in a final whoosh, spinning him head over heels before all fell silent. He slowly rotated, no jets to control his movement, the abandoned ship rotating slowly into and again out of view among the scattered bodies of the Reavers' victims, each rotation carrying it further away until he lost sight of it against the field of stars. He felt for the emergency beacon and pulled it, knowing there was no likelihood of a ship happening upon him before his air ran out. He watched the clock on the oh two meter count down with each shallow breath he took. After seven hours, it read zero. Ten minutes after that, he drifted into unconsciousness.

* * *

"He's in pretty bad shape, but the scans show a decent chance he'll recover without brain damage. We've brought him out of the hypothermia and physical shock, but we're not sure what his mental state is. There was some kidney damage and some of his organs shut down for a while, but that's all treatable. He seems to be the only survivor of the attack."

Ben struggled to open his eyes as the woman's voice droned on. He gradually became aware that he was laying on a padded hospital bed. His wrists were confined in padded restraints at his sides. A cold sensation up his left arm led him to conclude he had an IV tube inserted in that limb. Finally slits of light broke through the haze of his vision and he saw the clean white and blue decor of a core planet hospital.

"And an attack by the resistance forces has been ruled out?" a male voice asked.

"The remains that were found had visible cut marks to the bones and.. and teeth marks, sir. It appears to have been more than a simple terrorist attack, same as the raids on the boundary moons and outposts."

"So these Reavers, whatever they are, have started attacking ships. Transport ships with fully armed Alliance units. And the only survivor is a Science Division tech with no seeming reason to even be in that quadrant. We'll take it from here." The man's voice started to fade as Ben lost consciousness again. "We have specialized means of interrogating these cases."

* * *

Ben felt the faint tickle of something pressing into his mind. It was a sensation all time agents were trained to detect, a mental probe. Part of the preparation for the mission into Anglo-Sino space had been focused on the fact that the Alliance at the time was working on empathic and telepathic technology, honing the art of mind reading with unwilling participants, skilled children whose brains were experimented on until they could pick the brains of captured enemies of the state. It was why it was inevitable that the browncoats would lose their fight to remain independent and free. More than the lack of technology and numbers, it would be the psionic advances made by the Blue Sun corporation's military sciences division that would spell the downfall of resistance from the outer planets.

For Ben, however, there was more at stake than an outpost or a backwater world. He was a time agent with secrets of the future that could alter that very future and endanger the existence of humanity itself. That was the reason for the failsafe, for the Memory Override Total History and Experience Revision program uploaded into their vortex manipulators before every mission. With one verbal command he could obliterate his memories, his knowledge of the time agency, all traces of his identity in the current databases he had encountered during his mission. It was a drastic measure, requiring at least five years before he could start to recover anything, if MOTHER determined it was safe for him to come out of hiding. Until then, he would be left with only a basic personality, one designed for the motive of pure survival. He would cease to exist. Recalling Aiden's soulless gaze, it didn't seem to be such a bad deal. His lips moved slowly, painfully against cracked and dry skin until finally he was able to whisper the necessary words. "Mother.. watch over my soul."

Light seemed to flare through his brain like fire, burning everything it touched. Ben Jacoby, time agent, slipped quietly into darkness and obscurity as his personality was overwritten, taking away almost everything that made Ben who he was. He sighed in relief as Aiden vanished from his memories.

"He doesn't know anything, sir." The teenage boy squirmed in his chair, fighting against the restraints that forced him into reading the older man's mind. "He's not even a science tech. He's just a dumb mercenary who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's not even interested in the resistance, just in making money on smuggling."

"Give me his name so we can run it through the system and see if he has a record," ordered the taller of the two blue-gloved men.

The boy writhed, knowing the men would kill him if he didn't comply. "Jayne.. Jayne Cobb."

"Jayne Cobb." The other blue-gloved man leaned over the unconscious figure who had once been Ben Jacoby. "You're very lucky you don't know anything. You may prove very useful in the future. Let's call this one a tag-and-release. Make sure we leave him in the system as a loyal Blue Sun consumer."

* * *

:So there you have it, another agent's story and an explanation at the same time for why Jayne Cobb is paranoid of Reavers and being 'spaced'. Please let me know what you think. **You know I love reviews!**:


	7. In the Latter Days Part One

:Those who are reading Serenity in Cardiff already know the basis for this part of the story. For those who aren't, why not?! sob Er, um, I mean, this is going to be a multiple parter relating the final days of the Time Agency before the event that knocked the number of agents down to seven and resulted in the agency's closure. Not that this is the end of this anthology, of course, because it's not limited by chronology, so even after this story I'll be writing stories from beforehand, hopefully. Ah, the love of quantum fiction. Still have to give you stories about Gray and such anyhow.

* * *

_**Archives of the Time Agency**_

_In the Latter Days, Part One_

* * *

Jack awoke to the scent of coffee, stretching as he sat up. "Your coffee is so worth coming back for, Kyhl."

"Just my coffee, is it?" The director sat on the edge of the bed with a smile and held out a cup.

Jack took it, leaning in to kiss his boyfriend's secretive lips. "Not just. Happy birthday, by the way."

Kyhl set his own cup on the nightstand, sliding his hands around Jack's hips as he returned the kiss, creating a trail of them along the agent's jawline. "You remembered."

"You always remember mine." Jack drank from his cup. "Problem is that mine seem to have more effect than yours do." He set his cup next to Kyhl's, then pulled him down with him against the pillows, looking into the director's youthful face. "You're supposed to be forty-four."

"Am I, now?" Kyhl pushed himself up to straddle his lover. "So what do you want me to do, start acting my age?"

"You could look it at least." Jack tried to pout, but it was hard with their bodies in that kind of contact. "You still look like you did when I first met you."

Kyhl glanced upward thoughtfully. "Nope, when we met my hair was brown and nearly to my shoulders." He looked back down, his lips curling into that teasing curve that made Jack crazy and in love all at once. "You can see it's cropped short and ginger."

"Why do you do that? You never give me a straight response."

"You want me to give you something straight, then?" Kyhl pinned the agent's arms above his head and bent to taste his lips.

Jack moaned, finding it more than distracting to be dominated physically and mentally at the same time. "Yes, but I want an answer, too." He twisted his wrists around to reverse the hold, rolling over to sit on top of his lover. "I'm getting older and you're not. What are you, a vampire or something?"

Kyhl broke into laughter. "Oh come on, darling, have you ever seen me drink blood?"

"Vampires can live on other body fluids as well," pointed out the darker haired man.

"Then I'd have passed the virus on to you by now, don't you think, what with the frequency of exchange?" Kyhl sighed, dropping his head back with less humor. "I'm not a vampire, okay? I'm perfectly human."

"What's your CO?" Jack pressed.

Kyhl rolled his eyes. "My century of origin? Aren't we getting a little dramatic? This is starting to sound like an interrogation, Jack."

"How am I supposed to trust you when you never tell me what's going on?" Jack softened his tone, letting the director's hands loose.

"I would hope you'd just go on past experience," he chided, wrapping his arms lightly around the agent's waist. "Have I ever done anything to hurt you?" Kyhl sighed, shaking his head as Jack raised a brow. "I'm from the twenty-first, okay? Our first Rift trip was into my chronological origin. I was twenty-four. My birthdate is nineteen August, nineteen eighty-three."

"So this is your... three thousand one hundred and eleventh birthday?" Jack whistled. "I should have gotten you a plaque, or is a watch the appropriate gift for someone your age? I'm not sure about milestones past a hundred."

"I haven't lived a strictly linear lifespan." Kyhl glanced up, calculating. "I think I'm actually a little closer to two thousand seven hundred fifty.. three."

"How rude of me." Jack sat back, crossing his arms, still kneeling astride his lover. "Still, you look good. Not a day over two thousand, I swear."

"There, see? You don't even believe me, so why should I tell you all this?" Kyhl sat up to kiss him. "Is the interrogation over?"

Jack shook his head. "Let's say I accept your age. Even if it's outside the range for humans, which you still swear you are."

"I do." Kyhl picked up his coffee and had a drink. "Completely and totally."

"Why do you look twenty-five?" Jack tilted his chin up.

"Twenty-three, actually." Kyhl buried his smile in the edge of his mug. "I stopped aging at twenty-three. You just guessed I was twenty-five and got stuck on that idea."

"Can't be because of your maturity level," sulked Jack, retrieving his own coffee. "So how'd this happen? You find the fountain of youth? If so, I wish you'd share."

Kyhl shrugged. "It was accidental. It involved someone who had been revived from death who then revived me from death and somehow this happened. Honestly, Jack, if I knew the secrets of eternal youth do you think I would keep it to myself?"

"You might. You like keeping secrets." Jack pouted. "So what do you do when your lovers get old? Say, thirty-five. Is that about the limit for you? In ten years I'll be old enough to be your father."

"Oh my God, you are perpetually vain," murmured Kyhl. He finished off his coffee and set the empty cup aside, then took Jack's cup away so he could hold his hands, looking up into the agent's blue eyes. "Jack. I love you. I can't stand it when we're apart. In my eyes, believe me, you look so young, and being thirty-five is hardly one foot in the grave. You just won Rear of the Year for crying out loud. Who do you think entered you in the first place? And when you're forty, you'll still be beautiful. You'll be amazing at fifty, too, I bet. If, someday, you should manage to live long enough to be grey and wrinkled, you'll be the most sexy pensioner on the planet and I'll throw myself into your arms and gladly tell you just how gorgeous you still are. It's not your age I'm in love with, okay? If it was a problem I'd never have slept with you in the first place."

Jack broke into a laugh. "Thanks for that mental image. You rolling around with me when I'm ancient and hoping I don't break a hip." He leaned in to steal a kiss. "I'm glad you told me the truth."

"I'm glad you're satisfied." Kyhl smiled. "Now can I get my present?" He reached around to give Jack's backside a squeeze.

"Hope you don't mind it's not wrapped." Jack let the director pull him close.

"Not at all," murmured Kyhl. "Rear of the Year, just what I always wanted."

* * *

Jack consulted the screen of the cooker for the next required ingredient and opened the cold pantry to get the pepperoni. Modern appliances, he considered, were also worth coming back for. When he went on missions into anything further back than the thirty-third century he was forced to survive on takeaways and whatever canned products he could simply heat and eat rather than deal with trying to actually cook. Going back further than the twentieth century usually meant he and Jady would come back ten pounds lighter and famished, complaining about living on fried eggs and whatever meat was handy. Tonight, however, was special, He was making Kyhl's favorite, and one of the few foods that was consistently available for well over three thousand years going back. Kyhl had cryptically said once that the very best pizza he'd ever had was on an orbital city a million years in the future and it was a shame they didn't deliver this far back in the timeline. He also claimed that he knew the man who had first brought bananas to Earth, however, so Jack was never sure what to believe from the director.

He heard a click from the living room as he slid the pizza in to bake. He furrowed his brow, walking slowly out to investigate. The black cube that had occupied the edge of his desk for the past five years, twenty-five centimeters on each side with a blinking red light on the top, now was blinking green. He lunged to grab the box, willed to him by Aiden Combs in the event of his death or disappearance. The quantum programmer had had no living family when he went on the mission to the twenty-sixth century five years ago and never returned. The timelocked safebox had sat on Jack's desk ever since, a constant reminder of his lost friend, the only other member of the agency who had any relationship to the Boeshane Peninsula.

Aiden's grandparents had lived further up the Peninsula, in the town of Gale. Jack had known them, in fact. His mother's good friends, Vance and Shana Combs. Vance had taught maths in school, Shana was an artist, favoring landscapes of the beautiful Boeshane seaside. He could vaguely remember meeting Aiden on visits, although he was younger than Jack's little brother Gray had been, even, not much more than a toddler who sometimes followed him and Gray when they'd go to play on the beach and would have to be brought back home to be kept out of their way. It was on one of those visits that the first Shrieker attack had happened, in fact. The little boy had trailed after the brothers, bored with being around the adults. Jack had scooped him up and was carrying him back toward the town when the sky had become filled with inhuman shrieks, like angry raptors. By the time they'd made it back to the town it was over, only bodies piled on the streets and confused, terrified survivors. Vance had been one of the dead, his throat slashed open. Jack had been terrified and hid with the boys until his parents finally found them. The relief at his parents being safe and alive was tempered by the disappearance of Shana. Three months later she was found wandering in the surf, her body covered in vicious and recent wounds, babbling about torture and evil. She'd died the next day. Aiden moved away from the Peninsula with his foster family and Jack hadn't heard from him again until he'd applied to the Time Agency's Quantum Analysis Division.

Jack ran his thumb over the catch of the timelock curiously. He had no idea what was inside it, but about a week before they'd gone on Aiden's last mission, the young tech had excitedly revealed to Jack that he'd found a way back into the Shrieker invasion, the blacked-out time period that had claimed their families. He and Jack had often speculated about why the period was blacked out, why any attempt to enter it through time travel would instantly kick the agent back to their origin point. Agents who had gone back prior to the blackout and tried to simply stay long enough to get into it found themselves reverted to the other side, three years after the first attack, unable to learn anything, unable to effect anything. Aiden had never gotten a chance to explain to Jack what he'd discovered. When he didn't return from the mission, Jack was given possession of his belongings, including the mysterious box. For five years he'd waited for Aiden's return or the box to open, not daring to tell Kyhl anything about the potential that the Shrieker blackout had been solved.

He slid the lid of the box open and turned it over, a small black tetrahedron sliding into his palm. He dropped the safebox, looking around his desk frantically for his data reader. He found it in the second drawer and pulled it out, sitting on the floor and placing the data-tet into the triangular slot. It lit up a brilliant purple as the program opened, the holographic display showing a strip of paper twisted into a loop. "What is it?" He tapped on the rotapad, switching the view to the datastream. He couldn't understand the formulas, of course, but programming had never interested him. He knew enough to recognize what sort of equations were involved and that was all. It was a time loop matrix entrance formula, but with an additional inverse matrix added at the third term. "A Riftcracker. Aiden, you wrote a Riftcracker that will get past the blackout?"

The sound of the keypad at the door to his and Kyhl's apartment made him jump to his feet, kicking the box under the desk and hiding the reader behind his back as his boyfriend walked in. Jack sucked in his breath, always struck by the way Kyhl could pull off the unique uniform he wore, a long black leather coat from the late twenty-first century over a korithane-armored waistcoat from the Morad War in the forty-second, jeans from the American mid-twentieth tucked into seventeenth century riding boots, a side-sword from the same era worn at his hip, the only real color from a red Imperial Guard uniform shirt borrowed from the early thirty-seventh, clashing with the brace of Independent Alliance pistols he wore from the same period. In an era like the fifty-first century when dyeing fabric was considered garish, the Director of the Time Agency cut a striking and romantic figure that reminded people of a past worthy of protecting if they wanted to have their present.

The director grinned to his lover as he tucked his silver-plated stopwatch into his pocket. "Sorry. Eden had a bunch of work that simply had to be dealt with and we had to brief the Gast Nucleus paradox team before we could send them out, plus everyone I passed on the way home had to wish me a happy birthday." He crossed over to kiss Jack. "So you're cooking. Trying to kill me?"

Jack shook his head, tucking the reader into his back pocket so he could wrap his arms around his lover. "I'm not that bad at it, am I? Besides, I got a recipe this time. So how's the wife, anyway?"

Kyhl chuckled. "She's fine, wishes she could join us, but I mentioned the bunch of work, right? Of course, she only decided it would take her all night once I said you were making dinner."

Jack pouted. "I give her food poisoning twice and she refuses to eat anything I make after that?"

"Actually, I think it was the time you served her pre-pack rat that put the nail in the coffin for her hiring you as a chef. You know, she's convinced you're doing it out of jealousy." Kyhl let go of Jack to sit down on the couch, putting his feet up on the coffee table.

"Jealous?" Jack snorted. "What, that you're married to her or that you gave her the job of assistant director over me?"

"The second. Not like the first matters much when you're still the man I love." Kyhl gave Jack a grin. "I need you in the field and she's the best quantum physicist in the agency. You'd hate being assistant director anyhow. It's all reports and research, no dashing hero stuff."

"Then it's not likely I'm jealous." He sat on the coffee table, Kyhl's feet between his legs. "I like Eden, even. Pretty much. Wish you'd married Miran, though. She's so much better in bed."

"I'd rather not have two lovers who are always out in the field trying to outdo each other in ways to get themselves nearly killed, thanks. You're enough fun for me in that department." Kyhl tapped his boot against the inside of Jack's thigh.

Jack grabbed the toes of Kyhl's boots to keep them still, leaning forward over them. "When you were in the twenty-first century were you, you know, open?"

"You know what it was like back then." Kyhl laced his hands behind his head. "You weren't allowed to really talk about it. But I guess I was more open than most. I was, in the terminology of the time, bisexual. Mostly dated girls because it was easier, but I had experiences with men as well while I was growing up. I can tell you one thing, being a bisexual teenager motivates you to learn to throw a punch."

"Were you ever married?" Jack pressed his knees against Kyhl's calves lightly.

"No." Kyhl stared at the coffee table. "I was in love, twice. The first time, I would have married her in a minute, but she died before I ever got up the nerve to ask. The second time was with a man, the first time I ever had more than just sex with a guy. He was.." His lips slipped into a fond smile. "He was amazing. Like nobody I'd ever known before. I spent most of my time wondering why he even looked at me, he was so gorgeous. Our first few times together, I have to admit, it really was just shagging with someone I didn't mind being around. It was right after my girlfriend had died and I wasn't ready to open up to anyone yet. He was fantastic in bed, of course, but he could also be completely shameless and arrogant. Swore I'd never fall for him no matter how much I might love him for other reasons."

"Can't believe you loved anyone before me." Jack frowned. "I'm better in bed than him, right?"

Kyhl cracked up. "Actually, you and he are a lot alike. Did I mention shameless and arrogant?"

Jack grinned. "You did. Okay, so he was _almost_ as good in bed as me. And that's why you fell in love with him?"

Kyhl shook his head. "I fell in love with him because under that arrogance was this beautiful, selfless, giving man who would die for me if he could, and one day I finally realized that, even if he loved other people as well, he saw me as special. That and he knew what it was like to not fit in, to not really belong in any nice, neat little categories that were in vogue in society at that point, so we could trust each other in a way that was hard with people who didn't get that."

"Why didn't you marry him, then?" Jack tilted his head. "Same sex marriage became legal in the twenty-first century, right?"

Kyhl shrugged. "He never asked. Neither did I. Marriage back then meant never being with someone else and we both liked our freedom."

"So you wait three thousand years and then get married?" Jack crossed his arms. "Why Eden?"

"She asked," said Kyhl simply. "She's the first person who's asked me to marry her that I cared to say yes to. She's smart, funny, beautiful, and doesn't give a shit about my past."

"And she's the daughter of the Minister of Homeworld Security."

"And she's the daughter of the Minister of Homeworld Security," agreed Kyhl. "It's not like there's anything wrong with a little political advantage to what amounts to legally formalizing a relationship, so long as the actual relationship remains subject to personal interests by both parties. Now, are you going to talk about my wife all night or are we going to celebrate the fact that we've been together for twenty years now without trying to kill each other?"

"Only been dating nineteen." Jack got to his feet and stepped forward, one leg on either side of Kyhl's, then sat on his lap, ending their discussion with a deep kiss. When the pizza burned, they ordered delivery.

* * *

:So there's the first bit, and yes, it just barely introduces the topic, and then only if you're reading Serenity in Cardiff as well. As always, reviews are gobbled up with chocolate sauce.:


	8. In the Latter Days Part Two

* * *

_**Archives of the Time Agency**_

_In the Latter Days, Part Two_

* * *

Jack stared at the data-tet in his palm, then set it on the edge of the bureau. Kyhl had already left to go to the office. Kyhl was the director of the agency, so he never had down time. Jack wasn't actually sure what he did all day. He only knew the aspects of the job that he witnessed in his own, when Kyhl would hold briefings for agents going out on missions. He knew a lot of time was spent on research as well, putting together the historical information that prepared an agent to survive outside their time. He was vaguely aware that Kyhl Rift travelled on occasion himself, that he kept a vortex manipulator in his desk and sometimes introduced a new agent who had been recruited from the past.

Jack, meanwhile, had down time, and now was down time. Agents were required to take ten days between missions, during which time their only obligation was to get medical scans every day to monitor their genetic adjustment to time travel and any immunological responses to anything they'd been exposed to in the past. As Jack looked in the mirror he could see the effects of genetic adjustment. He might not look as young as Kyhl, but he did look young for thirty-five. Technically, counting time spent on missions, he should be more like fifty by now, but the Rift's radiation signatures acted like a stopwatch on the body's cellular clock. With enough exposure to Rift radiation, the aging process was slowed by about ten percent, but too much exposure could also result in toxins that would prevent cellular repair. Without the forced down time, agents could eventually wind up bleeding to death from shaving cuts as their bodies forgot how to close a wound, heal bone, even build muscle.

He understood the necessity for taking time off, but it always made him edgy. The first three or four days were relaxing, sure. He could sleep in until noon, wake up when Kyhl came back for lunch and talk him into having it in bed, then get up when his lover had left again and go to the infirmary to get his scan. That took up about ten minutes, leaving him with nothing pressing to do with his afternoon. He would fill the time with reading, working out at the gym, or practicing in the weapons range. By about the sixth day he was tempted to turn his revolver around and swallow a bullet if he couldn't get back into action. Fortunately, by day seven he usually had a mission packet waiting for him on his desk and could spend the rest of the down time in preparation. Today was the sixth day.

He pulled on his black leather pants and white shirt, then donned his black leather combat vest and buckled his holster around his hips before stepping into his boots. The Time Agency's standard uniform was less than specific to any particular period, not likely to draw much attention, sans weapons, in any century after the mid-twentieth. He turned to have a look at his prize winning ass and couldn't help a grin. The standard uniform also made him look pretty hot, he had to admit. He grabbed the data-tet from the bureau and flipped it in his palm, then tucked it into the top right pocket of his vest, striding with renewed self-assurance out of his apartment and into the Station.

The Time Agency was housed in a building that had survived since nineteen thirty-nine, precariously astride an earthquake fault that was actually the most stable Rift location after the forty-fourth century. The rest of Los Angeles had to be replaced every fifty years or so, it seemed, shaken off the earth like an irritating prom date only to come back with fresh drinks and better building codes. It seemed absolute proof of humanity's stubborn insistence to exist that they kept rebuilding the City of the Pacific. According to Kyhl, the Rift outbreak had actually started at the beginning of the twentieth century in a more northern location, a city called San Francisco, and gradually moved southward until it came to Los Angeles and decided, unlike most residents of the dynamic metropolis, to stick around for the duration. While the actual people in Los Angeles always seemed to be coming from or headed to someplace else, there was never any diminishing numbers, only constantly changing faces. The buildings changed as often, always the cutting edge of modern architecture, mostly due to the collapse of anything historical when the planet would heave itself out of slumber and attempt to finally put the place into the ocean.

In the middle of the chaos, Union Station remained the only constant, suffering cosmetic and sometimes structural damage, but always still standing when the shaking stopped. Back when trains ran through West California, before it _was_ West California, all the rails made their way to this very building. From its beginnings it had fought for respect, tiny compared to other metropolitan train stations, but Los Angeles had never quite gotten the hang of or the taste for public transportation, so only a few of the populace, mostly the servant classes, had became familiar with the grand interior of the Station. Jack could spend hours wandering the halls, looking up at the art deco fixtures, the archaic integral wall fixtures, and the ornamented exposed wood beams that echoed the earthy colors of the mosaic marble and tile floors. Reflecting the eclectic irreverence of the city it served, the Station had mixed elements of several historical architectural styles, making it as ambiguous in appearance as most of the time agents themselves. Even if it hadn't been a stable Rift point, Jack had a feeling Kyhl would have felt the draw of the Station to serve as the agency's base of operations.

He made his way to the lift and stepped in, the doors closing on the twentieth century as he dropped into the bowels of the structure that sprawled underneath it, starting below the deepest train tracks, centered around the containment chamber of the Rift outbreak itself. The doors slid open again and he found himself in the Time Agency proper. The walls glowed a soft white, creating a surreal, shadowless light that fulfilled every need to convince the body it was being exposed to natural light and, at the same time, tricked the brain into thinking it was more focused, more alert, and frankly in a damned decent mood. He made his way along the hall, passing techs and agents with a flirtatious smile. It was returned quickly in almost every case. He could still make a heart skip a beat with a wink from the top ranking agent.

"Hey, Rear of the Year!" Miran fell in step with him, her shoulder length amber curls swinging in rhythm with her stride as she gave the other agent's award-winning backside a firm slap. "Too bad you're gonna have it stuck in a chair while I'm leading the Gast Nucleus mission."

Jack laughed. "Have fun with the boiling mud storms. I'm holding out for something more glamorous, hopefully tropical."

"Yeah, at your age I can see the allure of milk runs." The feisty agent drew her pistol, spinning it before holstering it again. "Me, I'm not too old for action."

"Oh, those are fighting words." Jack spun and pressed her to the wall, leaning in so his lips almost touched hers. "You want to test how fit for duty I am?"

"Any day at any time, Harper." She grabbed his collar, pulling him into completing the kiss, her teeth closing over his lower lip and tugging it before she released him. "I'll be back from this mission in six hours Agency time. How about you meet me in the gym?"

"You're on," he breathed. He stepped back as she slid away from him, continuing for the Triproom. He bared his teeth at her when she gave him a last look over her shoulder, causing her to break into laughter as she turned the corner and vanished from sight. For a moment he considered changing his plans. He wouldn't want Miran to think he'd either stood her up or chickened out: both could wind up being dangerous if she caught up to him later on. He closed his eyes for a moment, hearing in his mind the screams of the Shriekers, feeling his hand cold and empty as he realized he had lost hold of his little brother. He opened them again, his feet already finding their way forward to the auxiliary Triproom, not scheduled for use for the next several hours.

* * *

"Rift energy event five nine six zed delta nine delta reaching stability apex in fifteen seconds, calculated duration seven minutes twelve seconds," intoned Eden into her mic, adjusting the exposure field of the Rift containment chamber. "Gast Nucleus paradox mission prepared to depart, oh nine eleven, twenty August fifty ninety-four, for twenty-one nineteen, twenty-seven July thirty-four eighty-eight." She looked up, giving the team leader a smile. "Good luck, Miran, see you in six hours."

Miran nodded in return, stepping onto the event dais and opening her vortex manipulator. "Catch you in a week. Agent Miran Lewis departing Time Agency at oh nine eleven." She and her team hit their interfaces, the Rift enveloping them and drawing them into the quantum event horizon. "Just make sure you keep your husband busy. I've got a date with his boyfriend."

"Will do." Eden grinned. "I'll get the first aid kit ready, too." She watched as the team was sucked into the horizon, then returned the containment field levels to normal within the room. Her eyes drifted to the readings for the field, her brow furrowing as she noted the levels still well below normal. She tapped on her comm. "Kyhl? Is there another mission going out on this event you forgot to tell me about?"

"Nothing until sixteen hundred," came the reply. "Why?"

"I'm reading the containment field as being open even though I've closed it here." She pulled up the schematic for the field and spun it around to check the other rooms. "It's open in the Aux. It could be a leak, or it could be an unauthorized trip."

"How long until the event horizon collapses?"

"Just under seven minutes." Eden pursed her lips. "I'm checking the manipulator ident now. Kyhl, it's Jack."

"Shit," responded the director. "Okay, I'm on my way. See if you can track his destination from there."

* * *

Kyhl skidded to a stop in front of the door to the auxiliary Triproom. He wasn't surprised to see the lock light on, but a swipe of his thumb overrode the security and slid the door open.

"Jack?!" he yelled as he entered, the room awash in the intense light of the fully opened Rift. He switched back to his comm. "Eden, it's up all the way in here. You have to start containment shut down protocols."

"I'm reading radiation surges already," confirmed the assistant director. "It's not safe for you to be in there, Kyhl."

"I've got an agent on the other side of that horizon, Eden. Where did he go to?" Kyhl studied the active data-tet, the holographic image hard to read in the glow of Rift radiation. "Looks like he used a Riftcracker."

"Not any of ours. Oh my God."

"What? What is it, Eden?"

"I found out where he went. Kyhl, he broke the blackout. He tripped into the Shrieker invasion." Eden's voice was low, but he could hear the unsteady edge to it. "He's been in for almost a minute and he hasn't been reverted back out."

Kyhl swallowed, looking back at the event dais. "Eden, evacuate. Get everyone out of the building, now. When this horizon collapses--"

"The open system will close," finished the physicist. "What about you?"

"I'm going after him." Kyhl strapped on his vortex manipulator. "Eden, if I don't come back.."

"You're coming back," she said quietly, insistently.

"If I don't come back, the Agency is yours." He took off his comm, setting it on the control console, and stepped onto the dais, activating his manipulator and letting the Rift draw him in.

* * *

Kyhl fell to his knees in the sand, the light fading to a more bearable Atlantic summer afternoon. He pushed himself up to his feet, spotting the agent ahead of him, barely a dot sprinting for the beach. He could hear on the wind voices of people coming from the direction of the ocean. It was Dolphin Day, the annual festival where Boe's citizens gathered to send out baskets of flowers and fish as gifts to their sea friends. It was also the day when Jack's father was killed, when his younger brother was captured by the Shriekers.

"Jack! Jack, come back!" He ran after his lover, knowing it would be impossible to catch up to him now. If he could save Gray, he would. He knew, far more than Jack, what horrors the young boy had faced as a prisoner of the cruel creatures who took sadistic delight in torturing their prey. He knew how it would twist him into a psychotic as an adult, a man who could think of nothing but inflicting pain of his own on the older brother who had lost his grip on him when he was still little more than a child himself, who had failed as an unarmed boy to protect him from evil incarnate. The problem was, he couldn't predict, any more than any of the brilliant minds at the agency had managed, what changes that would make, how it would ripple out into the past and the future. Would it simply save a man from going insane, or would it disrupt the entire timeline and drop three millennia into a fatal time loop? Could he live with the sacrifice of one innocent boy to protect Earth and humanity itself? For the first time in twenty years, he desperately wished he had the Doctor with him to help him figure out what to do.

He looked up as he heard the screams of the Shriekers rip open the sky. He stopped at the top of the dunes, sucking in his breath as the terrified townspeople started to rush past him, desperate to escape. He ignored the desire to look and see for himself what a Shrieker's face was like, instead searching for the black vest. It stood out against the sand and beige-colored clothing of the people of Boe. Jack was in the middle of the crowd, searching frantically for the face of his little brother. Kyhl was bumped into by someone and looked down, seeing the sandy hair and young face of a lanky youth, not even a teenager yet. He caught a glimpse of blue eyes and knew who it was, even as the boy started running again, diving for the safety of the roots of a tree to hide in. "Jack," he whispered, turning his attention away from the older version of his lover as his heart went out to the boy who was about to lose everything he loved in one horrible day.

"Gray?! Gray!" He could hear the older Jack's frantic cries as he desperately tried to find his missing brother, but they were quickly drowned out by the Shriekers and their victims. A shadow crossed the corner of his vision and he spun to see one of the creatures standing directly in front of him. It was almost like looking at a hologram being transmitted through a magnetic flare, shifting shadows that seemed solid one moment and a trick of the light the next. The outline reminded him of an old, faded, decrepit black bin liner flapping in the wind while pinned against a barbed wire fence, shredded and ephemeral. His empathy gave him a sense of mindless rage, pure, cold, insane hatred, the wave of it bringing bile into his throat and making his body shake.

He felt an intense pain in his chest, so harsh he couldn't scream, could only suck in his breath. He looked down to see three claws extended from the Shrieker's gnarled left hand through his ribcage. Paralyzed, he felt venom surge through his bloodstream, killing his body slowly while his brain was left unharmed to experience the agony fully. The creature blew away as if on the wind, making a sound that seemed like a moan of satisfaction with his pain. He fell to the sand, somewhat stunned that two and three quarters millennia of life, seeing things of amazing wonder past and future, would end in such a useless, helpless, meaningless way, alone on a beach in a paradox he didn't belong in. He felt strong arms wrap around him and lift him up. He gazed upward into the familiar blue eyes of his lover, unable to move or tell him how much he loved him. He would have loved to have the chance to say goodbye.

"Kyhl!" Jack shook his head, the nightmare only getting worse. He couldn't find Gray. The Shriekers had moved on to Boe and he knew he'd never catch up in time to stop them from killing his father. And now Kyhl was here, too, dying in his arms. He'd changed nothing. He collapsed over Kyhl's chest as the life faded out of his eyes. "What have I done?" he sobbed.

He was shocked into opening his eyes again by the icy stab of a timeloop reset. As a time agent it was familiar enough to him. His arms were empty and it was dark. The moonlight shone down on the empty beach, no bodies scattered on the sand. He stood shakily to his feet, looking down at his wrist strap. He was back at the night before Dolphin Day. He would have another chance to save them, to save Gray, his father, Kyhl. A laugh of joy escaped his lips.

"Jack." Kyhl stepped up behind him, putting his hand on the agent's shoulder. "I've got to take you back. We have to find the causality and get out of here."

Jack spun, hugging Kyhl tightly. "I can do it right this time. It'll all be okay."

Kyhl dropped his head against Jack's shoulder, remembering with powerful intensity the darkness and agonizing isolation of death. "I hope so, Jack. I don't want to see this day again."

* * *

:Please let me know what you think so far. Next up, where did those two years Jack had stolen of him get spent? And what happened back in 5094 when the event horizon collapsed? Coming up in part three.:


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